Entered at the Post Office of New York, N. Y., as Second Class Matter
Oopyright 1912, by Munn & Oo., Inc.
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Scientific American Supplement $5 a year.
Scientific American Supplement, Vol. LXXIIL., No. svat NEW YORK, MAY 11, 1912. Scientific American and cme ted $7 a year.
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Published weekly by Munn & Oo., Inc., at 361 Broadway, New York Frederick Oonverse Beach, Sec'y and Treas.. 361 Broadway,New York.
Interior of the Metallurgical Mill
HOW IRRIGATION FOUNDED A SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSITY—(See page 296.)
4 j L ‘
A Room in the Metallurgical Laboratory. Jed
=
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897
May 11, 1913
Energetics and Cultural History’
A Chapter of Ostwald’s Philosophy
InstTeap of regaling or wearying you with a recital of
my own views or work, I crave your indulgence in laying
hefore you some matter taken from a recent work in
German by that dean of our profession, Dr. Wilhelm
Ostwald, “Die Forderung des Tages’—‘*The Demand
of the Day.” It is true that Dr. Ostwald is more gener-
ally known as a chemist, creating and marking an epoch,
and as an inspiring teacher, and that he would, therefore,
not generally be considered a dean of engineers, yet true
engineering in its widest sense was a decidedly funda-
mental activity of his. The particular essay that so
profoundly impressed me that I wished to gain your
appreciation by bringing it before you was Ostwald’s
lecture on “* Energetics and Cultural History.”” Were its
author a writer aspiring to the older distinction of the
classic culture, I should hesitate to thus crib, but engi-
neers are broad-minded, and desire only to give the
widest spread to their discoveries and teachings; let that
be my apology.
Ostwald defines energetics as that scientific concep-
tion which considers the physical idea of energy as the
one which, for the time being, presents the most exact
gathering of physico-chemical facts and laws. Dr.
Grechen pointed out that energeties is first a theory of
physical phenomena, and that a connection of its results
and methods of thought with the problems of the higher
mental life is not immediately apparent. Energy, as the
term is to-day scientifically defined, has but a loose con-
nection with the moral quality of the same name. To
the engineer, energy is a physically measurable quantity,
best known to us as mechanical work. As chemistry
teaches that coal, graphite, and carbon all represent the
same substance, carbon, insofar as each of these may be
changed into the other, so does physies teach that me-
chanical work may be changed into heat, light, electricity,
chemical effects, ete. As impossible as it is to increase
or decrease a given quantity of carbon by the most ecom-
plicated transformations, so impossible is it to increase
or decrease a given amount of work by the most intricate
transformations. For both there rules the law of con-
servation. That which we can neither create nor destroy
we call a substance; thus the chemical elements have
the character of substances, as have also work and its
transformation products. These latter are given the
common term “energy,” while the science of the laws
governing the manifold transformation of energy is
“energetics.”
Prefacing that this is all well known, Ostwald answers
the question for the reason of this repetition by the state-
ment that these laws not only regulate, but even make
possible, our very existence. Life is based on a continual
change of energy in our body; with the instant of inter-
ruption of this change death ensues. But not only
individual life, but all social life also, is directly domi-
nated by the laws of energy. That a speaker may appear
before you is due to the energy of some means of con-
veyanece; that you hear a speaker is due to the energy
conveyed from his vocal cords to you in sound waves;
that you understand a speaker is based on the energy of
your own mental activity. That is why we must, first
of all, be practicers of energetics, long before we may
choose any other view of the world—why nothing may
happen without the participation of energy in various
forms! 4
While the fact of energy is an every-day one, with the
term not nearly so well known, the condition is exactly
reversed as to culture, The word is generally familiar,
but an agreement between any two or three educated ~
people as to a definition will be hard to secure. There
are many definitions of this term which it would seem
impossible to give a common denominator. But the
usefulness of energetics will show itself in its ability to
embrace all of the many sides of the cultural problem.
All life, individual as well as social, utilize those forms of
energy that it comes into contact with for its own pur-
poses by suitably transforming them. The result of
this transformation may be great or little, as compared
with the energy expended, much as a skilled artisan
may, in a given time, do tenfold the work of an unskilled
one. Ostwald makes the extremely significant assertion
that the measure of culture is the efficiency of transforma-
tion of raw energies to human purposes. As the teachings
of the schools have robbed most of us of an untrammeled
vision, an explanation and a justification are in order:
All ancient culture was based on the existence of sla-
very. Only through it could a few acquire that leisure
and the means essential to free scientific pursuits. This
resulted in the involuntary equation of possession of
slaves with high mentality, and the despising of all
technical work as fit only for slaves. But the ancients
* Presidential address delivered before the Engineers’ Club of
Philadelphia. and published in its Proceedings.
By Henry Hess
themselves disproved this original hypothesis, since
among the chief furtherers of culture there were found
more and more slaves and freed men, because culture is
based on work, technical as well as mental; between
these two also the difference grows increasingly less.
If we can imagine ourselves back into the probable
initial condition of human development, we see before
our mental vision a being that is not superior to its sur-
roundings by either strength, speed, invulnerability of
covering, or otherwise advantageously fitted for the
fight for existence; it is also not guarded against dying
out by such protection as is found in a particularly sim-
ple organization or by great fecundity. A single quality
differentiates this being from others, that of increasingly
freeing itself from the influence of changing conditions of
existence by the formation of new, or the intentional reten-
tion of old, beneficial conditions. It is this quality that
finally gave to this weakly and poorly fecund race the
dominance of the earth. Wherein lies the essence of this
advance? What is the basic principle involved? Ostwald
answers his question that man learned to apply one trans-
former of energy after another, using and bending to his
purposes first the native energy of his own muscles, then
that of other men (slaves), of animals, of plants, and
finally the anorganic energies (wind, ground wealth,
water power). The possession of energy in the sense of
physical energy or the generalized idea of work means
the domination of the world. If, to-day, more than ever
before, the ownership of mobile capital carries with it
this domination, it is because capital represents the most
concentrated and most readily transformable form of
energy.
It is often said that man acquired the domination of
the world by his reason, and that reason carries with it
the concentration of great power in the individual.
This is true so long as reason is directed to acquisition of
energy and its purposeful employment. Chess certainly
does call for the exercise of considerable reason, and a
champion certainly does develop much reasoning power
when playing a game with a worthy opponent. But this
is not directed to the energy problem, and is, therefore,
foreign to culture; the latter would probably be greater,
rather than less, did nobody play chess.
When some primitive man first found that using a
broken tree limb enabled him to strike an opponent,
animal or man, before that opponent could close with
him, the first step was taken in the path of purposeful
transformation of energy.
Purely mathematically the inclusion of the weapon
(tool) did not permit the full application at the intended
place of the entire muscular energy used. But the lesser
absolute amount was compensated for by a more efficient
application. Whereas the forefather of this inventor
had to pay for each bear choked with the bare hands by
wounds and days or weeks of inability to work, the
cudgel wielder could kill his bear without being even
seratehed, and saved himself the days of nursing. He
was, therefore, able in the same time and with the ex-
penditure of the same amount of energy, to kill far more
bears than his brave ancestor, who did not know how to
transform his muscular energy by use of the cudgel.
The same may be said of each advance in culture;
that is, either a more useful transformation of personal
bodily energy, or the economic utilization of foreign
energies for personal account. The first step in this
second direction is undoubtedly the utilization of the
man power of others, first having learned to direct and
form that to one’s own will. This brings before us for
the first time the remarkable fact that by energy of
higher grade lesser energies are dominated, even though
the absolute amount of the subjugated far exceed that
of the dominant energy. More remarkable still, all
uprisings of slaves have ended in fiasco; in other words,
all attempts to make absolute energy amount dominate
have failed because these raw energies lacked organiza-
tion. Only from the union of rising classes with ruling
classes, where, therefore, the raw energies were organized,
did lasting forms result. So it was in the history of the
ancient Roman Empire, and so must we read the history
of the French Revolution, with its consequences, in
which the intelligence and the organizing ability of the
upper classes were still needed to make permanent that
freedom of the masses acquired by mere brute strength.
Ostwald then develops the same thought through the
beginning and progress of the utilization and domina-
tion by man of the animal and plant world. The tradi-
tional reverence of the mythical discoverer of fire shows
that the enormous step in the regular utilization of
anorganie energy was felt and realized in prehistoric
days. But the period of the extended and systematic
utilization of anorganic energy has but begun, and may
It bezan with
be counted back over barely a century.
the introduction of the steam engine with the ninetcent’,
century, is now passing through a new development
period in the utilization of water powers that was first
made feasible scientifically by electrotechnics, and will
finally have to take up the problem of the utilization of
solar energy, that is now but poorly solved by plants
with an efficiency of less than 1 per centum.
The older point of view—that of the adherents of the
older “‘classie”’ education or make the
advance of mankind in the technical arts, and the ma-
terial ease that in turn gave time for the practice of this
culture, a result of the culture. This idea is abhorrent
to the strict logician, as making a result produce itself,
Ostwald has clearly pointed out the logical line of devel-
opment. Refer back again to the existence of a high
classic culture as based on the leisure due to slavery, and
then to the almost total loss and extinction of this eul-
ture, and its renascence and far wider and more general
distribution as a result of the application of mental effect
to the despised handiwork and brain work of the tech-
nician and scientific worker. The old classie arts had
but a hectie existence and an early death, because based
on the subjugation of human muscular energy (slavery),
much as the consumptive shows a complexion envied by
those not recognizing it as a symbol of early decay.
The necessity for this order of development is clear,
since the progressive dominance of the other energies to
that of the anorganie ones demands an increasing faculty
for abstract thinking, which can but be the product of a
greatly advanced real culture. That others can work as
we do is a thought easily grasped; but that an animal
may be trained to work does not fail to astound every
child—is, therefore, unexpected. That a piece of wood
or coal may work was so far fetched an idea that it re-
quired thousands of years before the thought occurred to
man. And the law of the conservation of energy, which
first permitted a clear view of this vast field, and with
that its dominance, is barely sixty-eight years old.
So far the advance of culture has been considered only
in its more narrow technical sense. Is there also a con-
nection with the social and political organization in
families, races, and people, with the State and law? At
first glance the question of energy would appear to have
nothing to do with these matters, and this would be true
were it only a question of the law of the conservation of
energy. But what purpose do organization, law, state,
and the various other social forms of mankind serve
other than the increasingly useful utilization of the avail-
able energies? What else is the law but an arrangement
which permits each individual to devote his energies to
a useful purpose, without having to deflect a portion to
defense from predatory neighbors?
Ostwald next follows the development of war and
armies from the early mere aggregation of men depend-
ing upon their muscular energy, to the defeat and dis-
placement by those first using animal energy (cavalry),
to their defeat in turn through the utilization of more
concentrated forms of energy, as in gun-powder, and to
the change from toose aggregation to the present firm
aggregation into a relatively small number of powerful
nations, and then draws a parallel with capital.
Simultaneously, another form of energy concentration
has developed power as “‘mobile capital.’’ The energy
masses that are to-day collected in this power exceed by
far those concentrated in armies; money is more neces-
sary for war than are soldiers.
As in the beginning of the organization of States, the
clans were the real embodiment of concentrated energy,
and the life of each State depended upon its ability t
weld these clans into larger units without the former
continually tending to defect, we are to-day confronted
by capitalistic organizations, with individuals and small
unions striving to secure the benefits to themselves.
Whereas no State to-day would tolerate an individual
person maintaining at his personal disposition a body of
armed men, the State does tolerate the concentration of
the infinitely greater might of mobile capital in the hands
of the individual, making it possible for him to levy
tribute on the entire world. Ostwald here points to the
monopolization of petroleum by Rockefeller, to hinder
which the President of the United States even does not
appear to possess adequate nower.'
The condition is about the same as toward the close of
the middle ages, when the leaders of the mobile free-lance
soldiery were practically the rulers. Necessarily, the
newer development will have to follow a similar path, a
the State must itself, in self-defense, undertake the com
centration of capital and thus utilize its resultant im-
mense energies for the best interests of its citizens. It 8
true that this will necessitate the disappearance of the
! This was written in 1909, before the recent settlement (?), bY
dissolution, of the Standard Oil Company,
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May 11, 1912
superstitious fear of the interference of the State with
private possessions, a Pandora’s gift handed down to us,
with a choice collection of others, from the old Roman
law.
Concentration of capital in the individual has proved
itself to mean the most intense possible conversion of
the raw energies (mineral, etc., wealth) that the indi-
vidual or individualistic group controls, into capital
energy, Without regard to their rational utilization in
the interest of the entire community. The concentra-
tion of capital in the hands of the State, carrying with
it the control of all of these raw energies, substitutes for
their conversion in the selfish interest of the few their
utilization in the interest of all. We must not consider
the ideal of our development the using up, in the short-
est possible time, of our surely limited treasures, but
find our pride in satisfying our cultural needs with the
least possible using up of our raw energies, and not forget
the purpose of our life over its means.
Having grasped the significance of this idea of physical
energy, its central relation to the extraneous, economic,
and social side of human culture may be granted; but
can it be applied also to art and science, these highest
blossoms of our culture? .The answer does not seem
doubtful. Quite aside from this much-debated question
of psychie energy, it is clear that art and science must be
earried on. To carry them on a bodily organization is
necessary, the productivity of which depends upon many
circumstances, among which a happy increase of produc-
tive ability is of chief importance. But this is possible
only if the mental apparatus disposes of sufficient free
energy. As an old man, Goethe complained much of the
diminishing productivity of his later years; it was clear
to him that this could not be foreed. He, therefore, did
his work in the early morning hours, having found that
the lessened energy at his disposal in old age was not
sufficient to overcome the distractions of the later day
and permit other work. The highest work of genius, as
all other work, reduces itself to a transformation of
energy. It is merely a form of energy of great rarity and
corresponding value into which genius converts the lower
forms. Its high value again resides in the fact that it
influences other men to the better conversion of their
energy. The chemist knows phenomena of this character
as “catalysis”: an action that ordinarily takes place
slowly, even unnoticeably, is incomparably quickened by
the presence of a substance that finally comes out of the
reaction itself unchanged and undiminished. That is
the action of a work of art on a receptive mind: it does
not increase the absolute amount of the existing energies,
because energy cannot be created; but it does accelerate
the rate conversion of the existing energies, and instead
of purposeless dispersion, promotes their working to-
gether in harmony toward a valuable end. In this
catalytic effect of art Ostwald finds the social value and
significance of art; it is not only a purpose, but a means to
an immensely valuable end.
The social economic value of science is even plainer by
far. There is no such thing as science for its own sake
(note the significance from a past master of science)—
that would be mere play—no, science exists for human
ends. Such phrases as idealism and utilitarianism are
handy, not to disprove this statement, but merely to
deery it for those without judgment.
Whoever follows science for narrow personal ends, to
him she is but a mileh cow. The sound-thinking and
feeling man will enthusiastically follow science whenever
he recognizes and feels its social value, be his branch
whichever it may, when he sees that it makes it possible
for him to lighten human burdens and increase human
joys—in a word: to better mankind's utilization of its
free energy. Take the most abstract science, logic. If
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897 291
ever there would seem to be a science so academic that it
could be followed only for its own sake, this must be it.
But a moment's thought will show that the development
of logic may decrease the sum of human errors and so
make clear the practical value of this science.
One may ask one’s self whether any great amount of
human discomfort and useless work may be saved by
human endeavor. The true scientist will answer “Yes,”
and in that answer find the enthusiasm and persistence
needed for creative work and real advancement of science.
But he who has not this perspective, who does not find this
practical viewpoint, will but hunt a “job.”
Idealism is not a lack of purpose, as those who follow
purposeless things would have us believe; on the con-
trary, it is the most intense knowledge of purpose; but
the purpose must be set high enough to merit the name
of idealism. And all these high purposes may again be
viewed as the delivery of mankind of its burden and the
enhancement of its joys. But relief from burden is a
diminishing of energy used for a given purpose, therefore
improvement in efficiency, while increase of enjoyment
means increased activity of the nobler energies resulting
from a freeing of a greater portion of the total energy for
that purpose—in the end the same thing. We, there-
fore, inevitably arrive again and again at the same view-
point, and must be convinced that we have found a scale
for the measurement of every human endeavor.
The law of the conservation of energy, also, was first
doubtfully aceepted, even denied, but to-day we know
that there is no physical phenomenon which may not be
brought into a definite equation on the basis of this
fundamental law.
Ostwald closes with the enunciation of a new law,
deduced through a similar development of ideas that:
The measure of culture is the efficiency of the transforma-
tion of raw energies to humanly valuable purposes.
The Chemistry of Sewage Disposal’
Chemical Action the Basis of Every Successful Method
Ir is now the accepted theory that bacteria and other
forms of life are invariably necessary in order to obtain
fixed results from any method of sewage disposal. It is
recognized that these work under more or less definite,
fixed conditions, and demand certain treatment; that
they ean be governed to perform their functions effici-
ently, and, finally, in the performance of their work that
they depend on a free supply of oxygen to completely
oxidize the organic matter and create a non-putrescible
effluent.
It came to be recognized that one could obtain all sorts
of hydrolytic decomposition in septic tanks, or under
anaerobie conditions, with productions of proteoses,
peptones, amino acids, nitrites, hydrogen sulphide,
methane and hydrogen; that these decomposition
products were still for the most part putrescible, and
sometimes more difficult to handle than the raw material
from which they were derived, and that, after all, the
complete end products of any method of decomposition
depended on the fact that oxidization of carbon gave car-
bonie acid; of nitrogen gave nitric acid; of sulphur gave
sulphurie acid, and of hydrogen, gave water. These are
the final products obtained in any completely oxidized
sewage. Sewage disposal in the chemical sense might be
stated: Organic matter+Oxygen=Inorganie matter
+Humus.
As the object of every method of sewage disposal is to
create a non-putrescible effluent, and more recently a
non-pathogenic effluent, the anaerobic methods, such as
that of the septic tank, have failed because of this one
fact, that the end products of anaerobic action are still
putrescible, and must be further treated.
The real biological oxidation methods may be grouped
together, since the action taking place in them all is prac-
tically the same. These are (1) Intermittent sand filtra-
tion, which really is an improvement on the older method
of sand filtration; (2) Contact beds—single, double, or
triple, and (3) Trickling filters.
In all methods of sewage disposal it is deemed advis-
able as a preliminary to remove as much of the suspended
material as possible, by means of the various forms of
sedimentation tanks.
Now, if the material is sterilized in any of these meth-
ods, no action, or only a very slight one, takes place. If
the sewage is treated with disinfectants, the same thing
occurs; but if these various types of beds are given re-
peated doses of sewage, the organic matter is gradually
converted into inorganic salts, and the filter becomes
matured. At the same time it is found that the sand
granules, or stone, slag, or other material, becomes coated
with a gelatinous layer containing bacteria, organic ma-
terial and iron. As the gelatinous film becomes thicker,
the purifying action is improved.
In such a matured, intermittent sand filter, Dunbar
* Reproduced from the Engineering Magazine.
By George G. Nasmith
found that if a gallon of a solution of albumen was poured
on to the top of the filter, a gallon of water, less the
albumen, flowed out at the bottom. That this was the
same water he proved by adding readily detected chemi-
cals, such as potassium iodide or fluorescein to the orig-
inal solution. When repeated at intervals he found that
the sulphuric acid in the effluent corresponded almost
exactly to the sulphur in the albumen, while only part of
the nitrogen appeared as nitrate, the rest of the nitrogen
disappearing as free nitrogen or remaining locked up in
the humus, which was formed in small quantities. A
portion of the carbon also disappeared as carbonic acid,
while the balance was retained in the humus.
The remarkable fact, therefore, became apparent,
that a solution of albumen or sewage may leave an inter-
mittent sand filter thoroughly purified in ten minutes.
In other words, the organic material in the sewage
became absorbed by the gelatinous material covering
the granules in the filter. It is known from experience
that micro-organisms cannot decompose such material
in a few minutes.
By excluding air from the filter, it was found that such
purification ceased to take place. By sterilization of the
bed, or when disinfectants were added to the sewage,
purification also ceased. The principle became fixed
that bacteria in presence of air were essential for purifi-
eation.
It was then demonstrated that in a matured contact
bed, if quantities of distilled water were added at inter-
vals, there would be considerable quantities of nitrates
found in the effluent, and carbonic acid would continue
to be given off and found in the air of the filter. The
conclusion was therefore very obvious. The organic
matter was first absorbed by the gelatinous film, and
during the periods of rest while in contact with the air,
this was decomposed with the aid of organisms, during
which process oxygen was used up, and fresh oxygen
drawn into the filter. This latter fact has been proved
with the aid of capillary tubes inserted into the beds
and connected with manometers. If a contact bed is
filled with sewage, and air is blown in at the bottom, the
free, unabsorbed oxygen is unable to carry out the neces-
sary oxidizing action, and the sewage is not rendered
non-putrescible. The oxygen thus absorbed during
intervals of rest seems to be condensed on the surface of
the gelatinous film, into some more active form, possibly
as ozone, by the high pressure which is known to exist
in such gelatinous films.
In the trickling filter, the principle of oxidation has
been carried to its logical conclusion. In such beds, the
sewage is continuously sprayed over the surface by one
of the innumerable devices for the purpose. The bed
itself is composed of some hard material, preferably of
slag, which does not readily weather, and is so arranged
that the filling material becomes smaller toward the
top and larger toward the bottom, so that humus-like
substances formed may be readily washed away.
Sewages which could not be treated satisfactorily in
contact beds were handled satisfactorily by simply
trenching the surface of the bed, placing a layer of sand
along the bottom of the trench, and allowing the sewage
to flow along these trenches, the raised parts allowing
free access of oxygen. The contact beds were thus con-
verted into trickling filters, and the results were eminently
satisfactory.
The septic tank, which is wrong in principle, except
in so far it may prove useful as a liquefying agent, is
already doomed as an integral essential to any method
of sewage disposal.
The contact bed, which is on a right principle, wrongly
earried out, will also probably soon disappear. The
intermittent sand filtration method, which is satisfae-
tory in principle, is very expensive to construct and
maintain for a given unit of sewage treated.
Based on purely theoretical principles, and with the
experience already gained, in point of economy and effi-
ciency, there is no doubt but that the trickling filter has
come to stay and 1s bound to displace all present forms.
The sedimentation of the humus-like material from a
trickling filter is readily accomplished, and should con-
stitute part of the system in order to obtain a clear efflu-
ent suitable for disinfection with chlorine, as well as to
remove an obvious physical objection.
The disinfection of raw sewage by chlorine may prove
a valuable compromise in some rare instances when other
methods of treatment are not possible, but is said to be
not working out as well as was expected. It should prove
of great value in rendering a clear effluent from biologi-
eal sewage disposal systems absolutely safe.
Manganese in Steel Production.—lerro-manganese is
hest added to steel in the heated state, as if it is put in
cold it causes a cooling down of the metal and more
ferro-manganese is needed than theory requires. Be-
sides the mixture lacks in homogeneity. It is thus de-
sirable to melt the metal, but much of it is lost by
volatilizing in this case. In Germany a very good
method is now used, the ferro-manganese being melted
in a Keller electric furnace at the Burnbach steel
works. The cost of melting the 4,000 tons of ferro-
manganese needed for treating 800,000 tons of steel
is found to be $20,000 at the present rates for current
(an electric melting furnace being used), but much
economy is secured by the fact that there is searcely
any loss of the metal, which is now employed in the
melted state, so that less of it is needed. Supposing
that the amount is lessened by two pounds per ton,
this gives a saving for 800,000 tons of steel of SOO tons
of ferro-manganese, which valued at $40 a ton figures
out to $32,000.
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292 - SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No, 1897
Fig. 1.—Printed Cloth Bindings Contain Oils and
Greases That Attract Insect Pests.
Fig. 2.—Books Bound in Wood Covers are Subject to Attack
by Insects Native in the Wood Employed.
Insects Destructive to Books
Some of the Pests that Play Havoc With Our Libraries
Ir will be impossible in this lecture to go into details
regarding the various series of experiments that have
been made and studied in order to obtain the results,
which I will speak of this evening, on account of the limit
of time. Some of my remarks will appear to some re-
searchers to be the words of one lacking an understanding
of the groundwork of science, but in reply to those who
doubt, I can only say, investigate along the same lines
and the results will amply repay you for your time and
labor.
Paste-eaters.—The statement previously made by me
to the effect that the paste used in binding was often
eaten by the larvee of insects hatched from eggs that were
originally in the flour, has been questioned on the ground
that the heat necessary to boil paste, 212 degrees, would
have killed all life. How this challenge could have been
made by anyone who had experimented on the vitality
of eggs under adverse conditions is beyond my compre-
hension. They confuse the life that has hatched with the
life within the egg. Heat no doubt would destroy the
greater portion of the life that had hatched, but not
always, as in the case of certain bacteria, who from their
known power to withstand a high degree of heat, are popu-
larly called heat-lovers. They have even stood the high
temperature of steam for a number of hours. But aside
from the imago state of the insect, the egg, in which the
embryo passes through its various stages, has been over-
looked, and experiments properly conducted will prove
them capable of withstanding a temperature very much
above that which the scientist of to-day has knowledge.
Anyone caring to investigate the life in the paste may
easily do so in the following way: Boil the flour in the
usual manner, adding the glue for the binder, and after
allowing the mass to cool, let stand in a dark, damp place.
After it has become sour, it will be found that nature will
again produce the same forms from it as she did when it
was in the form of flour. Naturally, to give conclusive
evidence, care must be taken to see that no insects are
allowed to gain access to the paste from the outside, so as
to avoid any possibility of their laying their eggs in the
substance.
Bindings: Wood Bindings.—Books that are bound with
wood covers are always subject to the borings of the in-
sects that lived on the species of trees from which the
boards are made, especially if the atmosphere is saturated
with moisture, this being due to the porous nature of the
wood. (Fig. 2.) Take the point of a needle, touch the
wood, and you find that it gives, showing that it is com-
posed of cells containing gases. They are not only sub-
ject to attacks from without, but also from within, i. e.,
larve hatching from eggs that were deposited in the tree
before it was made into lumber. The early stages of a
number of species of wood-destroying insects take quite
a long period to evolve.
The insects destroying wood bindings are species of
* Copyrighted by the author, 1911, and reproduced here by his
special permission from the American Journal of Pharmacy.
1 A lecture delivered at the University of Pennsylvania. The
first contribution appeared in the Scientiric AMERICAN SupPLe-
ment for December 24th, 1910.
By William R. ReinicK
Second Contribution!
Bostrychide and some of the Scolytide. (Figs. 4 and 5.)
One species of Cerambycide has been named as causing
trouble, and as a large proportion of the species of this
family are wood-borers, other species will likely be found
to tunnel these covers. ,
Bindings: Leather Bindings.—The so-called dry rot of
leather bindings said to be caused by the fumes in the
air, especially where gas is used for lighting purposes, is
Fig. 3.—Photograph of the Cover of a Book From the
Land Office, Punjab, Showing the Work of Anobium
Paniceum.
also found to take place with leather-bound books that
have not been exposed to such chemicals. Investigation
will prove that instead of gases being the destructive
agency, minute forms of life alone are the cause.
Another subject for future research is the cause of cer-
tain round holes, as though made by shot, often found in
books bound in sheepskin. A careful examination of
bindings showing these peculiar shot-like holes failed to
show any galleries leading into or along the back of the
books, which the Coleoptera, the insects named as com-
mitting these ravages, would make; and careful obser-
vation will reveal that instead of the holes being made
by beetles, that a species of T'richina, a parasite which at
present causes great losses to sheep-breeders, is the
source. The skins, even after going through the various
processes of tanning, still contain the same basic prin-
ciples as in the primal state.
Bindings: Printed Cloth Bindings.—These bindings,
on account of the oils and greases used in their manufac-
ture, are subject to the ravages of those inseets which
have use for such substances. (Fig. 1.)
Species of Blattide (Fig. 6) and Gryllide@ are fond of
these bindings.
Printing Inks.—While investigating the various print-
ing inks, Mr. Thomas A. Bradley, President of the Secur-
ity Bank Note Company of Philadelphia, called my
attention to the fact, that the working clothes of the em-
ployees of his company, if left hanging in a dark place
for a time, were found to have been gnawed by the larva
of some species of insect, and that the most striking part
was, only that part of the clothing which had been stained
with ink was eaten. Most inks contain one or more
acids in their composition, and as they are claimed to be
po.sonous and therefore should kill, one would say that
the parts of the goods discolored by the inks should be
exempt from these attacks, instead of proving attractive.
A French author writes of a book in which the insects had
eaten the portion of the paper which had received the
impress of the ink, showing that they were after some-
thing besides the paper, paste or binding.
To prove this, I took a piece of parehment—sheepskin
and imitation—and a quantity of the finest grade of en-
graver’s black printing ink, made a circle of ink in the
eenter with diagonal lines running from this to the eorners
and sides and a one-eighth inch border all around the
edges. After the ink was dry, I placed a piece of cach
kind of parchment in a tin can with twelve roaches, add-
ing water from time to time for drinking purposes. At
the end of two weeks an examination of the parchment
showed that the roaches had eaten all of the edges, had
then followed the diagonal lines, eating mostly the por-
tions so marked, and then the cirele, showing that they
knew the value to them of the acetic acid which was in
the ink.
I hope that other experiments will be made along the
same lines to ascertain if the various dyes, though often
of the same color, are more secure from the inroads of
insects than others, on account of containing certain
chemicals in their composition. Blatta orientalis was the
species used in making these experiments.
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CONDITIONS FAVORABLE FOR THE PROPAGATION OF BOOK
PESTS.
Darkness.—The majority of libraries generally keep a
large number of their books upon stacks placed in a dark
portion of the building, badly ventilated, and the only
light available as a rule is from gas jets or incandescent
lamps, which are only lighted when needed. This dark-
ness, the more or less damp air which is found in these
surroundings, the gases of various kinds in the air, and
the fact that the books most seldom called for are kept in
these locations, all combine to give favorable conditions
for the propagation of these small forms of life without
much chance of their being disturbed during the evolu-
tion of their life-cycle.
UNFAVORABLE CONDITIONS FOR THE INCREASE OF THESE
INSECTS.
Light.—This, and cleanliness, are the two most im-
portant factors in preventing the ravages of insects
among books, and will also prevent another sort of dam-
age to books, namely, the various kinds of fungi which
start to grow upon and in the books a short time after
they have been placed in a damp, warm atmosphere.
The lessening of the destruction of books that have
been kept on shelves in badly-ventilated and badly-
lighted libraries, after having been transferred to a new
building having good ventilation and light, is ably illus-
trated by the experience of Mr. Ernest J. Reed, Librarian
of the Oahu College, Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. He
stated in a letter to me that before the books were moved
to the new building, the whole collection was constantly
being riddled by various species of boring insects, but that
since moving to the new quarters they are comparatively
little troubled by pests. From an examination of sam-
ples of books I have received from him, I wonder how
anyone was able to read the books with any degree of
satisfaction, as many had hundreds of tunnels running
through them, some had large cavities eaten in them, and
others looked as though a mischievous boy had taken a
pair of scissors and tried to see how many strips he could
cut each leaf into; in others the cloth binding was almost
entirely eaten off, exposing the galleries made by the bee-
tles in the cardboard covers.
Books will also be found to have forms of life living
upon them which at present cause much speculation as
to what substance they feed upon, and the insects com-
monly known as book-lice, belonging to the family Psoide
(Fig. 7) of the order Corrodentia, are examples. In turn-
ing over the pages of books or looking over papers which
have been kept in a dark location for a long while, one
with a keen eyesight will often see little specks of life run
to a crevice to hide or get away from the rays of light.
On account of their whitish gray color and an ability to
run with a speed which is amazing when the size of the
insect is considered, it is only the keen observer who will
spy them as they seamper across the printed pages.
Though so small, they will be found to be the cause of a
great deal of damage to books.
Many investigators think that the greatest danger is
committed by the larger forms, whereas, as a rule, the
smaller species, in proportion to their size, consume many
times the amount of food as compared to that of the
larger insect. I especially noticed this in making the
experiment on artificial parchment herein mentioned,
where twelve roaches, many of them female, big with
eggs, at which time, of course, in order to provide the
necessary supply of food for the coming generation, they
would eat more than before the period of gestation, ate
such a small amount of the paper that I spoke about it to
a gentleman who was present when I examined the parch-
ment. A fly.in one day will consume food equal to its
own weight. This is also illustrated by birds, who, in
proportion to man, eat a far greater quantity of food.
Researches.—During the past year, I have made a
number of experiments, and much against my will have
arrived at the conclusion that as far as our present knowl-
edge of the effeets of poisons on these small forms of life
is concerned, we have not even laid the foundation upon
which to build.
The potato bug is an example. The paris green is
Placed on the plant in the morning, but at night the bugs
are still there and seem to be eating the plant with more
Voracity than when it was absent.
7
Fig. 8,—Book in Collection of the Library of Congress,
Washington, D. C.
‘SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897
Fig. 4.—Sitodrepa Panicea; a, Larva; Pupa;
Beetle, Dorsal View; d, Lateral View, All Much
Enlarged; e, Antenna, More Enlarged.
Fig. 5.—The Cigarette Beetle (Lasioderma Serricorne);
a, Larva; b, Pupa; c, Beetle; d, Same, Lateral
View, All Enlarged: e, Antenna, Much Enlarged.
Fig. 6.—The American Roach (Periplaneta Ameri-
cana); a, View From Above; 6, From Beneath,
Both Enlarged One-third.
Fig. 7.—Atropos Divinatoria; a, Adult From Below;
b, Same From Above; f, Maxillary Palpus; e.
Maxilla (?); d, Mandible; c, Labium, all
Enlarged.
Fig. 9.—Example of Havoc Wrought by Insects at Hill
Memorial Library, Baton Rouge, La. hr
293
Another source of error is the lack of positive knowl-
edge as to the resistance of these minute forms to poisons,
heat, pressure, ete., in their early stages. I have been
taken to task for the statement made by me in my first
paper as to mosquitoes hatching from eggs that have lain
exposed for a long period of time, but I think that the
following example of life remaining dormant under ad-
verse conditions is more wonderful.
When I started to collect insects, I used for a cabinet a
case of drawers which had been kept in a dry room of my
home and had been in daily use for about twelve years,
and placed it in an outside shed, the atmosphere of which
was warm and damp. Some time after, upon looking at
the contents of one of the drawers, I discovered a speci-
men of a large species of Cerambycide lying on the bottom
and wondered where it came from. After searching on
the outside and finding no opening, I pulled the drawer
entirely out and discovered that the insect had emerged
from the board used in making the side of the drawer,
showing that while the case remained in a dry location,
the life remained dormant, going on with its life eycle
when the proper conditions were given.
Seeds stored in a dry location for quite long periods
have been known to produce plants when placed in the
soil, and anyone familiar with bacteriology knows the
great vitality of these forms, invisible to the naked eye.
The smaller forms also have bodies more capable of
withstanding supposed remedies than the larger insects.
Take one hundred roaches and the same number of red
ants, pour boiling water on them, count the number of
survivors of each kind, and you will find that all or mostly
all of the roaches will have been killed, while a large pro-
portion of the ants are still alive; an interesting line of
experimentation for eeonomie entomologists.
Remedies.—I have received letters from almost every
country of the world suggesting remedies, some claiming
success, but the majority acknowledging defeat; in
many cases what was proclaimed to be a specific remedy
by one writer was declared to be a failure by others.
Even books treated with the strongest poisons, failed
to give the desired results, but on the contrary the reme-
dies seemed to give the insects that they were supposed
to kill a new lease of life. In the case of experiments con-
ducted by the United States Bureau of Standards,? and
also by myself, the roaches (the insects experimented
with) produced their young as though nothing unusual
was taking place. This Bureau made a very large series
of experiments in order to obtain, if possible, a binding
material: which would be exempt from the inroads of
insects, and also to witstand the effects of light and gases
without fading, and which Dr. S. W. Stratton, the Di-
rector of the Bureau, very kindly loaned me for study.
The tests were made with cloths, ducks and buckrams of
various colors. A portion of each piece was chemically
analyzed in order to find what substances were used in
their manufacture, and the rest of each sample was ex-
posed to the roaches for various numbers of days. The
results, when tabulated, proved that it did not seem to
make any difference as to what materials were used in
the coating, many of which were poisonous, as they had
nibbled all but one of the bindings. The effect was then
tried of impregnating some of the samples with a weak
solution of quinine and others with strychnine, but these
failed to give the desired immunity; and, upon increasing
the quantity of the poison in the solution, the attractive-
ness of the substance was increased. Even corrosive
sublimate was ineffective. It is true that the insects died
within a few days, but not until they had ruined the bind-
ings. One sample, seeming to be exempt from their
ravages, was selected and adopted by the Bureau as a
standard for binding the United States Congressional
documents, and also accepted by the American Library
Association Committee on Book-Binding as the best
binding for library books.
During a conversation in the Government Printing
Office last winter, while being shown the various materials
2 Memoranda relative to binding of publications for distribu-
tion to State and Territorial libraries and designated depositories.
—Unived States Congress, Washington, 1908.
Fig. 10.—Manuscript From the Philippine Islands in
the Library of Congress.
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used for binding Government documents, I expressed
doubts as to the buckram approved, known as No. 666,
being insect-proof; and this opinion has since been con-
firmed by experiments made by the Philippine Bureau of
Science, Dr. Stratton and myself.
My own experiments with a poison of an entirely dif-
ferent character gave better results. One-half of each
of the various kinds of binding materials tested was
treated with my preparation and the other half left un-
touched. They were placed in boxes and exposed to the
attacks of the roaches for various periods. Upon exami-
nation, I found that while the coloring matter in certain
samples had been eaten on both the treated and untreated
portions, the poisoned portions of quite a number of the
others were left alone. In some cases pieces of the same
color, although of different manufacture as regards to one
sample, were eaten and the other piece was left undis-
turbed. The remedy used by me did not, to my knowl-
edge, kill any of the insects. From a comparison of the
results, I arrived at the conclusion that the material used
for coating the buckrams, ete., in a number of cases, had
neutralized the effective action of the preparation used
by me, and that in order to really obtain a material that
would be insect-proof, it would be necessary to use such
coloring matters as would not overcome the beneficial
action of the poisons. ‘
The fact that insects seem to show preference for cer-
tain colors used in binding materials, has already been
noticed by a few of my correspondents; and also by my-
self while making researches in Florida last summer.
The Philippine Bureau of Science, finding that the
buckram used as a standard was not insect-proof in the
Islands, made another series of experiments, and have
produced material which they claim is absolutely safe,
but as I have not received any samples to test, although
[ have made request for same, I am unable to pass judg-
ment upon it.
Although scientists have been experimenting upon bind-
ing materials in order'to obtain one that would be exempt
from the ravages of these little insects, little has been done
toward preserving the most important part, and which,
according to my investigations, receives the greatest in-
jury, namely, the printed portion of the book. Some
experiments made by J. Rodway, Esq., Secretary of the
Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of British
Guiana, with papers impregnated with sulphate of cop-
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897
per, turpentine, kerosene and corrosive sublimate, failed
to stop the borings of the insects. I have sent boards and
books made of different papers which I have treated with
a substance to Mr. Rodway, and to other parts of the
world, and the results as to the effectiveness of the remedy
used should be received during the coming winter.
Arsenic in its various forms is used in large quantities
in the materials used in book-making, though denied by
the manufacturers; but chemical analysis will generally
show the presence of this substance, which is of use to the
insects. The elimination of arsenic in materials used in
book-making would not only do away with a source of
attraction to the insects, but save people from being
poisoned, as anyone familiar with the literature of poisons
knows.
Books as Disease Carriers.—Again, I speak upon the
transmission of diseases by books, because the greatest
disease carrier among insects that we know of to-day is
the common house-fly, Musca domestica, which is also one
of the book-destroying insects. There are a number of
instances where the maggots of the fly have been found
living upon paper, kept in damp places, but the damage
done directly to the book is as nothing when compared to
the damage done by their transferring germs, and, unless
means are taken for their extermination, they will rank
first among book enemies, because those who know of the
fly’s ability to carry disease germs, will refuse to read any
book which the fly has stained. The common house-fly
is only found around the habitation of man, showing that
it has evolved from some other form which formerly lived
in the open until it has now become thoroughly domesti-
cated, as other forms have done, are doing, and will do in
the future.
According to Dr. Howard, a single female fly in the
spring might, therefore, become the progenitor of 195,-
312,500,000,000,000 flies by the end of the summer or
mid-autumn, and allowing one million flies to a bushel
makes over 193 million bushels, each one of whom is
capable of spreading contagion. An investigation made
at the Agricultural Experiment Station at Storrs, Con-
necticut, in 1908, upon 414 flies, showed that the number
of bacteria on a single fly may range all the way from 550
to 6,600,000, an average of one and one-fourth millions
bacteria on each, an almost incredible number to be
found on such a small object. The objectionable class,
coli-aerogenes type, was two and one-half times as abund-
May 11, 1912
ant as the favorable acid type. Now this only includes
those on the outside, and every bacteriologist knows that
large numbers are found in the intestines and expelled
with the excreta. Mr. N. A. Cobb, in his article “The
House-Fly,’”* states that a well-fed fly defecates 104 times
in less than two hours, and that spores were found in fifty-
five of the specks. These specks, containing germs, are
laid upon the covers or pages of the books, and as per-
sonal observation shows that a very large portion of
readers moisten their fingers in turning over the leaves
of a book, it is readily seen how the fly speck upon the
paper is moistened, adheres to the finger and the germs
transplanted to the mouth, where they at once find the
proper conditions and proceed to breed, resulting in the
reader becoming afflicted with the disease, the source of
which it is impossible to trace, on account of the slight
consideration given by the medical world at the present
time to books as a source of disease.
The danger of contracting disease by the fingers damp-
ened with saliva in order to turn over the pages of a book
is especially so in the case of persons suffering from tuber-
culosis, whcs23 sputum contains millions of the bacilli. The
saliva drying, the Tuberc: bacilli cling to the fiber of the
paper, and as soon as another person, who also has the vul-
gar habit of wetting the fingers in turning the pages, uses
the book, the germs are removed to fertile soil. Many
other diseases, especially skin diseases, are without doubt
frequently transmitted by this means.
In conclusion, { cannot speak strongly enough on the
importance of cleanliness in preventing the destruction
of books by insects, and the spreading of disease. The
volumes in the library should be kept thoroughly cleaned,
the attendants ought to clean their hands frequently, and
the patrons compelled to wash their hands before using
the publications and should not be allowed to wet the
fingers in turning pages. These precautions will holp to
decrease the spread of tuberculosis and other diseases, and
do away with the grease stains on the paper, which are
breeding grounds for germs and attractive feeding places
for insects. Screens should be placed on all windows and
doors to prevent the entrance of flies, and by these means
only will the destruction of the stores of accumulated
knowledge be decreased and a source of death be over-
come.
* National Geographic Magazine, vol. xxi., 1910, pp. 371-380.
Human Evidence of Evolution
Is Natural Selection Dependent on Small Variations or on Large Mutations?
Tue problems of heredity are attracting a gratifying
amount of attention from many classes—the general
public, the professed biologist, the mathematician, and,
of late, the medical profession. Naturally it is the in-
heritance of human qualities which excites the greatest
interest; and there is always a desire to extend to the
human race any conclusions founded on the study of
animals or plants. It has been claimed by Archdall Reid
that the study of human beings is as advanced, or even
more advanced, than that of animals, and in itself
affords sufficient evidence to decide many controversial
points. In this article it is proposed to examine some
of the more important evidence that can be culled from
the study of human heredity, and to see what conclu-
sions may be justified.
There are certain obvious disadvantages in the human
species, as compared with animals and plants, for the
investigation of the problems of heredity. To begin
with, the families are small: the offspring appearing one
at a time, with intervals of many months between suc-
ceeding infants. Then the period of growth is prolonged,
lasting twenty to twenty-five years, and, in consequence,
it is excessively rare to have more than three generations
alive at the same time and available for observation.
The conditions, therefore, of preceding generations can
only be ascertained from the accounts, often inaccurate,
of the older members of the family. It is also impossible
to arrange human parentage, and the inquirer is depend-
ent on chance marriages for the production of a parti-
cular cross which may be required to throw light on some
obseure point. These objections must not, however, be
taken to imply that carefully collected observations,
subjected to strict criticism, may not supply very valu-
able facts; but at present the number of properly verified
facts is not great and there is urgent need for more.
In his book on the “‘Laws of Heredity,’ Dr. Archdall
Reid comes to the general conclusion that evolution takes
place by the action of Natural Selection on the small
differences between parents and children, insuring the
continuance of the more favorable variations. It follows
as a corollary of this that an unfavorable variation, or
one that does not tend toward the adaptation of the indi-
vidual to his environment, tends to be gradually elim-
* Reprinted from Bedrock,
By A. M. Gossage, M.D.
inated. A logical deduction from this theory is, that in
human beings bacterial diseases should eliminate those
most suspectible to them, and that, since the more
immune have the best chance of survival, and so of pro-
pagation, the immunity of a community exposed to a
severe bacterial disease should gradually increase. This
is a logical deduction from the theory, and, if the facts
accord with it, strong favorable evidence would be
afforded; but if, on the other hand, the facts are not in
accord, a very cogent argument would be raised against
the original theory. Since this theory of evolution by
the action of Natural Selection on small continuous
variations is by no means universally accepted it becomes
important to ascertain accurately what are the facts
with regard to the susceptibility and immunity of human
beings toward the various bacterial infections. That
persons differ in their susceptibility to infection seems
sufficiently clear, but the knowledge of how far these
degrees of susceptibility are transmitted from parents to
children is decidedly hazy. Still there is definite evidence
that susceptibility or immunity to rust is inherited in
wheat, and in spite of the strong opposition of some
authorities it is generally accepted that susceptibility to
tuberculosis runs in families. Beyond these points the
recorded observations are not either sufficiently numer-
ous or accurate to warrant any really definite conclu-
sions, though, on the whole, they seem to the writer to
weigh against the theory. Measles and malaria may be
taken as types of bacterial disease for consideration.
Measles is a disorder which attacks nearly all European
children, and after an attack the acquired immunity is
very complete. The disease is, as a rule, mild in type,
even in childhood, and the death rate is not high. There
are, however, some countries where measles is not
endemic, and where the adult inhabitants are not pro-
tected by a previous attack. In these places there has
been no elimination of the susceptible in past generations,
so that on the introduction of the contagium there is a
virgin soil for it to work on. With the gradual spread of
Europeans over the world in the last century opportuni-
ties for infection have arisen, and the results have been
severe epidemics. In these, adults and children have both
suffered, the case mortality has been very high, and the
illness has always been much more grave than in Europe.
For instance, the population of the Fiji Islands was
nearly decimated by measles on its first introduction
there. As far as this goes it is in favor of Archdall Reid's
conclusions, but it is possible te advance another hy-
pothesis to explain the facts, and at present we have no
means of dealing between the opposing explanations.
One may suppose that the higher immunity of the Euro-
pean child is due to the transmission to it through the
placenta, from the mother, of some of the immunity ac-
quired by her during an attack in childhood: A similar
transfer of immunity through the placenta is known to
take place when a woman is vaccinated during preg-
nancy, her child being immune to vaccination for many
months after birth.
Malaria is now mainly a disease of tropical and sub-
tropical countries, and is due to infection with a special
organism which is conveyed from the sick to the healthy
by means of a particular kind of mosquito. As a matter
of fact more than one disease is included under the term
“malaria,” each kind being due to a separate organism.
They all occur, however, in similar places and may be
considered together, since at present the knowledge con-
cerning them is insufficient to enable us to discuss them
separately. One must recognize that they differ in sever-
ity, some, e. g., the wstivo-autumnal, being much more
severe than the others, and individuals may differ both
in acquired and inborn immunity to the different kinds.
Extended observations have conclusively shown that the
adult native of India or West Africa suffers much less
severely from these diseases than do such Europeans as
go out to malarial districts, and it is tempting to conclude
from this that the white race is naturally more suscep-
tible to infection, and shows less resistance after infec-
tion, than the black. But it is also possible that the
individual black adult may have acquired insuscepti-
bility by reason of previous attacks or residence in the
district, and that at birth there is no difference between
the two races. This latter hypothesis is supported by
the fact that white settlers, who do not die, get “‘salted”
by prolonged residence in malarial climates, and tbat
the black children suffer very severely and many of them
die. If the explanation is correct, then white children
born in India or Africa should suffer no more than the
natives; and where the two races have been for several
generations in the same locality, they should be affected
equally, or rather, the white should be attacked less thaa
ecta
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May 11, 1912
the black, because they are less exposed to infection.
This point requires further careful investigation, but
Leonard Rogers, in his book on “Tropical Fevers,’’ tells
us that in a particular district in India the Hindu chil-
dren were found to be more severely affected than the
English; and Deaderick, in his book on “Malaria,” says
that in the Southern States of America the black popu-
lation suffers more severely than the white. Thus, as far
as it goes, the evidence is against the view that there is
evolution of immunity against ‘malaria, and _ since,
theoretically, this ought to occur, the evidence weighs
for what it is worth against the view that Evolution
takes place by the action of Natural Selection on small
continuous variations.
The opposing view that Evolution is dependent on
the action of Natural Selection on large variations or
mutations, is intimately bound up with the Mendelian
hypothesis. The phenomena of human inheritance have
been cited both for and against these hypotheses. For
the reasons already given the facts are not sufficiently
definite to afford any conclusive argument on either side.
What one is justified in concluding concerning human
beings is that, if mutations can be proved to occur and
persist in animals and plants, then they also occur in
human beings; and, further, that if the Mendelian hypo-
thesis is the correct explanation of the facts derived from
experimental breeding of plants and animals, then it is
also the correct explanation of numerous examples of
heredity in man. Some critics of Mendelism complain
that its advocates merely add other quite similar phe-
nomena to the collection already obtained instead of
breaking into fresh fields.- These same critics, almost in
the same breath, while acknowledging the accuracy of
most of the recorded observations, claim that this Men-
delian, or alternative, type of inheritance is exceptional.
The multiplication of examples becomes, therefore,
necessary to confute this argument, apart from the inter-
est of the observations themselves and the fact that they
frequently open up fresh problems. In this connection
it may be pointed out that there are over thirty recorded
abnormalities in human beings where the condition is
handed down to the descendants in a manner which
agrees fairly closely with what would be expected from
Mendel’s laws. The same may be said of some normal
conditions, such as eve-color, or red hair.
The study of these abnormalities brings out a number
of interesting points and justifies some important con-
clusions. The majority of them do not shorten life, and
many interfere only slightly with the individual's capac-
ity for earning a livelihood. In no case, however, can
they be regarded as an advantage or an adaptation to the
environment, and in some they prove a very distinct
disability. For instance, the claw-hand and foot deform-
ity must hamper the unfortunate possessors in the strug-
gle for existence; and sufferers from multiple telangi-
ectasis or angioneurotic cedema tend to die, because of
their peculiarity, at an abnormally early age. Yet these
conditions persist, being handed down to posterity in a
certain definite proportion, and no tendeney is shown
for them to die out. Perhaps the most remarkable exam-
ples of this persistence of a disability through many
generations of a family are afforded by the conditions
known as Hemophilia and Pseudo-hypertrophie Paraly-
sis. The first of these causes the death of a very large
proportion of the sufferers in early childhood from un-
controllable bleeding, while the second gradually cripples
its unhappy victims, and nearly always renders them
helpless and ineapable of procreation by the time they
reach adult life. In both of these conditions the affeetion
is confined almost entirely to the male sex, and, were it
handed down directly from father to son, would quickly
die out. As a rule, however, it is through the female,
who is herself unaffected, that the transmission takes
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897
place, some of the sisters of affected men passing the
condition to some of their sons. A wsman who earries
this latent abnormality may not only give it to her sons,
but may hand it down through her apparently normal
daughter to her grandsons, or through her granddaughter
to her great-grandsons, and so on. Thus the original
connection with an affected family may be lost sight of
where the males in each generation have been scarce.
A hemophilie male may transmit the condition to his
grandson through his unaffected daughter, but, curi-
ously enough, seldom transmits directly to his son. The
children of the normal males of these families are always
normal. As one can hardly imagine this curious pecu-
liarity as having arisen by the action of Natural Selec-
tion on small fluctuating differences, one would be
tempted at first glance to suppose that here was some
special device to insure the continuance of these noxious
plagues of humanity, a supposition which is supported
by the fact that the females from hwmophilic families
have a much larger number of children than is usual.
On taking a wider view, however, one finds that an
exactly similar type of inheritance prevails in Daltonism,
or color-blindness, a condition in which there is no injury
either to the individual’s health or his prospects of earn-
ing a living and begetting children.
It is claimed by Dr. Arehdall Reid, that the facts on
which the Mendelian hypothesis is founded can be as
well explained on the supposition that reproduction is
alternative in these cases as that inheritance is alterna-
tive. I do not quite understand what is meant by alter-
native reproduction, but the supposition seems to imply
that on crossing a ‘‘dominant” with a “recessive” there
is temporary patency of the dominant character in the
first generation and temporary latency of the reeessive,
while in succeeding generations there is more perfect
and permanent patency of the dominant character in
the “‘pure dominant”’ and of the recessive character in
the “‘pure recessives,”’ while in each the opposing charac-
ter becomes permanently latent. In other words, the
dominant character is considered to be always latent in
the pure recessive and the recessive character in the pure
dominant. This supposition affords no explanation of
why a particular character is sometimes patent and
sometimes latent, patency and latency seeming to be
purely haphazard. It assumes the presence of the other
allelomorph in pure dominants and pure _recessives,
although the only evidence of this is the rare occurrence
of certain exceptions to Mendel’s laws, exceptions which
time may clear up. It also makes no attempt to offer a
reason for the remarkable and constant numerical rela-
tionship of three apparent dominants to one recessive in
the offspring of two cross-bred individuals. A hypothesis
which gives no explanation of the most salient facts is
quite useless. On the other hand. the Mendelian hypo-
thesis of gametie purity does explain the facts and fur-
ther enables a prediction to be made as to the result of
the mating of certain individuals founded on their ances-
try; for instance, it is possible to predict that all the male
children of a color-blind woman will be color-blind. As
the explanation of these particular facts, therefore, the
Mendelian hypothesis is without rival. Still it is not
enough to demonstrate that no other hypothesis will
explain a particular group of facts in order to establish
the truth of any hypothesis, but it is necessary that all
the facts should be in agreement with the explanation
offered. There are, of course, apparent exceptions to
the Mendelian hypothesis, exeeptions which may later
be found explicable on that hypothesis, or, on the other
hand, may render its acceptance impossible; but that
does not take away the necessity for any rival hy pothesis
to offer a feasible explanation of all the facts before
acceptance. These points are illustrated in human beings
as well as in animals and plants, but, naturally, not so
convincingly. There is plenty of evidence of the purity
of recessives, and it is also found that, as would be ex-
pected, dominants of the rarer abnormalities, since they
result from the union of an abnormal with a normal are
always in a Mendelian sense, impure, so that half their
children with a normal mate are abnormal and half nor-
mal, this relationship holding in most of these families
where the numbers are sufficiently large. Difficulties
and exceptions are naturally met with. For instance,
dominance is, as in the case of the extra toes in fowls,
sometimes incomplete, so that the abnormal condition
is handed down through an apparently normal person, as
oceurs occasionally in Diabetes Insipidus, or Epider-
molysis Bullosa. Then, again, the numbers sometimes
do not correspond with expectancy. 5
It is of importance to note that the most striking
example of blended inheritance, in spite of marked
differences between the parents, is met with in human
beings. It is generally acknowledged that the small eon-
tinuous variations blend in the offspring while the large
discontinuous variations, or mutations, do not blend and
afford the examples of Mendelian “segregation.” One
would therefore expect that when there is interbreeding
between two markedly dissimilar races, such as the
European and the negro, that segregation would be
found in the third generation with the production of a
pure European and a pure negro. According to all the
available accounts, however, not only are the children
of a negro and a European a blend of the two races, but
all the offspring of two half-breeds are also a blend, and
there is a tendeney to approach the white type when
there is a further cross with a European, or the black
when a person of mixed parentage mates with a negro.
Genuine segregation seems to be confined to the imagina-
tions of the novelists, who go so far as to suppose that
there may be a reversion to a pure black type in the child
of a pure European with a mate whose black strain is so
slight that it could not be recognized on inspection (see
“Senator North,” by Mrs. Atherton). On the other
hand, it has been stated that segregation is shown in
crosses between white men and Red Indians; and re-
cently Salaman has brought forward evidence which
renders it probable that the characteristic Jewish features
are recessive to the Gentile. Accurate and extended
observations are much required on this question of racial
admixture, and the United States of America should
provide a fruitful field for such investigations, since, in
addition to those already considered, some crosses be-
tween negroes and Red Indians and between negroes
and Chinese and others should be found. In the first
generation the children of negro and Chinese parents
are said to resemble the Chinese except for woolly hair.
The problem is a complex one, as there are probably
several characters in which the two races differ; and
while one character of one race may be dominant the
others may be recessive, and the most interesting points
should come out in the case of the progeny of two half-
breeds.
In conclusion, attention may be drawn to the absence
of any evidence of evolutionary change, either physical or
mental, in the human animal during historic times.
Modern man is anatomically superior to prehistoric man,
but is no better equipped either with brain or muscle
than the ancient Greek or Egyptian, any superiority he
possesses being referable to the fact that he is able to
profit easily by the hard-won acquirements of his ances-
tors, and, having aequired these, to pass on to fresh
conquests. This emphasizes one of the mutationist’s
objections to the Darwinian theory of Evolution by the
action of Natural Selection on small continuous varia-
tions, that it requires an infinitely longer period for the
origin of species than geology is prepared to allow as the
existence of a habitable Earth.
Coloring and Frosting Incandescent Lamps
By A. S. NeuMARK.
Tux following lamp colors are” especially adapted
for stage lighting and interior decorations; if applied
properly they will outlast the lamps. A clear lacquer
is first made by dissolving 32 pounds of gum ceopal in
20 gallons of aleohol (denatured) to which has been
added 4 gallons of amyl alcohol (fusel-oil). It takes
quite some time for the gum to dissolve completely,
and the process should be assisted by shaking. Allow
to settle, then draw off or decant; strain through
several layers of cloth. It is not necessary that the
liquid be completely clear. In the liquid so obtained
dissolve the aniline dyes as given below. To every
gallon of clear lacquer:
Red.—Rhodamine B extra 2 ounces; chrysoidine E
cryst. 2 ounces; methyl violet 4% ounce.
Blue.—Blue Sp. t. 2 ounces; Victoria Blue 1 ounce.
Green.—Victoria green E 2 ounces; Methanyl yel-
low O 7/8 ounce.
Yellow—Methanyl yellow 1 ounce; Chrysoidine E
eryst. 44 ounce.
Straw.—Chrysoidine E eryst. 4 ounce.
Amber.—Chrysoidine E eryst. 1 ounce.
Orange,—Chrysoidine E cryst. 2 ounces.
Pink.—Rhodamine B extra 1% ounces.
Purple.—Methyl violet 11% ounces.
Moonlight.—Blue 8S. B. 11% ounces;
ounces,
Light Blue.—Blue 8S. B. 11% ounces.
Blue-green.—Victoria green E 2 ounces.
Not all coal-tar dyes are suitable for coloring lamps.
1 have found that Blue 8S. B. (which is usually used)
soon turns green and fades quickly; but the combina-
tion of the two dyes indicated will be lasting. There
is also no single red dye, which furnishes a satisfactory
dark red effect. The combination of amber, pink and
purple, however, results in the desired shade.
The solution is filled into a suitable cup and the
hot globes, which previously have been thoroughly
cleaned, are dipped into this solution. Care must be
taken that the solution is free from air bubbles and that
the globes do not touch the sides of fhe cup. Amber
and yellow can be applied to the cold lamps. One
dipping is sufficient in most cases, provided the globes
have been cleaned carefully.
FROSTING LAMPS,
Mix 1 gallon of acetone with 3 quarts of benzol
and 1 quart of turpentine. Dissolve 24 ounces gum
sandarac, 8 ounces gum benzoine and 8 ounces gum
Methanyl 3/8
mastic. Shake well, let stand over night and strain
through cheesecloth. The liquid will be perfectly
clear, provided the bottles used have been perfectly
dried; they should be rinsed out with aleohol before
using. This solution is applied to the globes by dip-
ping. The lamps must be cold and they should not
be used before they are perfectly dry.
Both colorine and frosting liquid should be kept
in glass bottles or stoneware jugs, but never in tin cans.
Frosting may be tinted with rhodamine, methany]
yellow and other dyes, although some of these dyes
such as chrysoidine are nearly insoluble. The colors
and the frosting can easily be removed from the globes
by washing with a solution of caustic soda or alcohol.
The Hinematograph as an Aid to Mathemati-
cal Instruction
WE read in Prometheus that L. Miinch, of Darmstadt,
has recently employed the kinematograph for demon-
strating certain properties of geometrical figures. Thus,
for instance, the transition from the circle to the ellipse
by the gradual spreading out of the foci from the center
ean be very nicely demonstrated in a way which appeals
to the imagination, as yet untrained, of the novice.
> :
295
des
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May 11, 1912
The Library and Museum, With South Hall in Background on the Right. View Looking East Toward Central Group of Buildings.
How Irrigation Founded a Scientific University
A Center for Technical Education in Arizona
IRRIGATION in the arid regions of the southwest, has
accomplished far more than nourishing the dry soil
and making it fertile for crops. It has created home.
sites for farmers, villages and cities. In one of these
cities whose site is on what was formerly a desert, is an
educational center. Its campus now beautifully adorned
by Nature, thirty years ago was covered by sage brush
and cactus, and not a human being could live upon it.
So it may be said that the University of Arizona owes
its existence to the coming of the water, bringing civiliza-
tion. Without irrigation it never would have been
built and opened for instruction.
While such branches as agriculture and a general
college course are included in the courses of instruction,
the school is essentially a source of scientific education,
fitting students for the professions of civil engineering,
electrical, mechanical and mining engineering, as well
as metallurgy and the mechanical arts. Associated
with the university is a preparatory school in which
boys and girls are instructed to a standard where they
take up the courses in the university proper. While
the student body is not as numerous as at Cornell,
Sheffield or the larger eastern technical centers, in its
equipment and instruction this educational center
covers a very broad field. The high standard of its
graduates as engineers and miaing experts shows the
proficiency and thoroughness of the plan for instruction.
Opened ten years ago, the University of Arizona was
organized under the law givin; colleges of this class
land grants. Its faculty aims to elevate it to the same
important position in the southwest that the universities
in such States as California and Wisconsin have attained,
but as stated, it is already a broad source of engineering
education and no similar institution in the country has
more modern and varied apparatus and other equip-
ment for this purpose. What it means to the State
from the industrial development point of view is indi-
cated by the wording of its charter. It is ‘‘to provide
the inhabitants of this Territory with the means of
acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various branches
of literature, science, and the arts,’’ and so far as possi-
ble, a technical education adapted to the development
of the peculiar resources of Arizona.
In furtherance of this latter purpose, instruction is
By Day Allen Willey
provided especially in subjects fundamental to agri-
culture, the mechame arts, mining and metallurgy.
The university, by the nature of its situation, frankly
lays special emphasis upon the course in mining engineer-
ing. It is, in reality, a mining laboratory, surrounded
as it is on all sides by mines. Some of these mines,
developed on a large seale, are within a few miles of the
city, and the number and magnitude of such enter-
prises are steadily increasing. Probably no university
in the United States offers such advantages to the
students of mining engineering, who desire to see the
actual operation of great mines or the development
of such enterprises, while carrying on the theoretical
and experimental work of the mining course.
The advantages in civil engineering are also note-
worthy, for Tucson, where the university is located, is
not only a division point on the main line of the Southern
Pacific Railroad, with large shops, roundhouses, and
engineering offices, but it has the administrative and
engineering headquarters for five of the subsidiary or
allied lines of the Pacifie system in Arizona and in
Sonora, Mexico, commonly known as the Randolph
Lines, including the great West Coast Line which will
reach from Guaymas to Mazarlan and Guadalajara,
in Mexico. All of these lines are undergoing extensive
expansion and rebuilding, and so furnish excellent
opportunities for observation and vacation employment
for students of civil engineering.
The mines in the vicinity of the university, in most
eases, have the latest type of machinery for securing
the ores, and treating them by the most economical
and metal saving methods. With the opportunity to
enter the mines and study the mechanism and opera-
tion of the plants, the advanced students obtain a far
more complete and accurate knowledge than with the
laboratory models. They are permitted to work with
the miners and assayers and thus get an experience
that could not be acquired in any other institution.
The arrangements and type of devices used in the
civil engineering and mechanical departments, mining
division and material testing laboratory, indicate the
completeness of the object lessons. The engineering
department includes a recitation room, an instrument
room and office, a materials’ testing laboratory, and a
drafting room. The other rooms are in the shop and
assay building. The instrument room contains lockers
in which the surveying instruments are kept. These
include six transits, three levels, two plane tables, two
compasses, a sextant, a considerable number of small
instruments and other equipment required for field
work.
The materials’ testing laboratory is fitted for making
physical tests of wood, iron, steel, stone, cement, con-
crete, and other materials used in engineering con-
struction. The apparatus includes an Olsen 100,000-
pound universal testing machine, a duplex micrometer
extensometer, a Fairbanks cement testing machine,
briquette molds, club molds, molds for concrete beams,
molds for specimens for testing shearing strength of
concrete, a Vicat needle machine, specific gravity
flasks, sieves, a moist chamber and other auxiliary
equipment, in addition to drawing chuck and change-
gears. Other appliances for study include the latest
models of shapers, planers, and a large universal milling
machine, also grinders, drills, hack saws, hoists, all
operated by electric power served by individual motors.
As in the wood working department, all the apparatus
is of such dimensions and capacity as in actual mill
and factory practice. The same is true of the mechanical
and electrical laboratory. This includes the shops and
drawing rooms of the mechanical section which occupy
a total floor area of about 8,000 square feet, divided
into a large shop and machinery room, with adjacent
tool, supply and store rooms; draughting, model,
pattern, lecture rooms and office. The wood shop is
equipped with a full assortment of hand tools, twenty-
four benches with a complete set of tools with each,
six turning lathes, Beach scroll saw, a Whitney dimen-
sion sawing machine, a band saw, a Universal trimmer,
and a large grindstone with truing device.
The forge-room contains twenty down-draught forges,
twenty anvils, a combination shear and punch, a black-
smith’s drill press and a full assortment of small tools
and appliances. Blast is furnished by a Sturtevant
blower; the smoke and gases are removed by a 70-inch
exhaust fan. The machine shop contains one 24-inch
engine lathe with taper attachment, two 14-inch lathes,
one 14-inch lathe with taper attachment, one 12-inch
Scenes From the Metailurgical Laboratory in the Shop Building.
ef
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rtevant
70-inch
24-inch
lathes,
12-inch
View in the Museum.
lathe with taper attachment, drawing chuck, and
English and Metric change gears; one 10-inch speed
lathe, one 16-inch shaper, one 24-inch by 6-foot Powel
planer, one Universal milling machine, one Universal
grinder, one 24-inch drill press, 13-inch sensitive drill,
power hack saw, drill grinder, emery stand, grinding
attachment for lathes, 114-ton portable hoist, 1-ton
triple hoist, 14-ton screw hoist.
Each shop has its own tool room well equipped with
small tools, gages, measuring instruments, ete. A
large collection of working drawings, and sample col-
lections of models, machine parts, valves, electrical
fittings, insulating materials, abrasives, ete. The
laboratory is equipped for experimental work in the
study and operation of steam boilers, steam and gas
engines, hydraulic and electrical machinery.
Besides the machinery of the shop and mill which
can be used for the study of machine design as well
as for experimental work, the university has a 45 horse-
power return tubular boiler, a 35 horse-power center
crank engine, a 60 horse-power high speed automatic
side crank engine, to be direct connected to a generator,
a 30 horse-power engine, a 10 by 7 by 10 duplex direct-
acting steam pump, a small duplex pump, a 40 horse-
power Fairbanks Morse gasoline engine direct connected
to a 500-gallon high pressure fire pump, a 23-kilowatt
direct-current generator, a 5-kilowatt rotary converter,
a 7 horse-power induction motor, a 3 horse-power and
a horse-power direct-current motor.
An 8-inch by 10-inch triplex pump with its electric
motor, serves as part of the equipment of the mechanical
electrical laboratory, and also furnishes the university
with its water supply. The department is well equipped
with electrical measuring instruments, steam indicators,
gages, weighing scales, ete. For the testing of pumping
machinery, a large steel weir box, overflowing into a
cement cistern, is connected by suitable piping to the
various pumps in the laboratory. The dimensions and
power of this equipment, give the student an oppor-
tunity to study designs that are actually operated in
industry.
While, as already stated, the advanced students have
opportunities to visit mines and there study the ore
formation, mining, the use of electrical drills and other
devices of late design, the metallurgical laboratory
Portion’ of the’ Physics” Laboratory.
where they secure their first education, is notable for
its mechanism for instruction by operation as well as
by study.
The apparatus for liquid treatment of ore for separa-
tion includes two ore crushers, 4 inches by 7 inches,
and 4 inches by 6 inches; sampling rolls, 6 inches by
9 inches, a cone and burr sample grinder; a pebble
mill with a capacity of about 15 pounds at one charge;
a laboratory lightning crusher and a disk pulverizer;
a 5-stamp mill, with 800-pound stamps; a 3-stamp mill,
with 250-pound stamps; inside and outside amalgamated
plates for the same; a 2-foot clean-up pan; a 1-foot
amalgamation pan, and a 9-jar revolving agitator for
testing samples of a few ounces, a table of the latest
pattern, and a hand jig; a 1'4-ton cyanide plant for
treating sands or dry crushed ore; two 150-pound
eyanide plants for treating smaller samples; a 3-foot
agitator; a 12-inch, 6-chamber flush plate and frame,
washing filter press and pump for the same; shaking
screens; ore feeder; belt and bucket elevator, sampling
plates, split samplers, percolators, sizing screens from
l-mesh to 200-mesh, miners’ pans, and retorts. The
power for operating this plant is furnished by a 30
horse-power Westinghouse induction motor.
The ores treated are galena and silicious gangue in
lead. Copper ores include chalcopyrite, pyrite with
galena and silicious gangue. The tungsten ores include
wolframite and quartz gangue, while the free milling
ores are gold and silver. Consequently, the students
of metallurgy have an opportunity to analyze a great
variety of ore bearing material.
The crushing for a gold mill illustrates the thorough-
ness of the process carried out. The equipment of the
mill includes five 1,800-pound stamps. The ore 1s
crushed by a 4 by 7-inch crusher, to inch sizes, then
carried by an electrically operated conveyer to the
stamp battery. It is fed automatically by a feeder.
The battery has a capacity of 20 tons in 24 hours. In
crushing for sampling or for runs of small quantities
of ore by the miniature plants, the ore passes through
a 4 by 6-inch crusher, then through 6 by 9-inch rolls,
and finally the sample grinder. The capacity equals
any demand. Fifty to hundred-pound lots are ordinarily
treated.
Another section is the location of what is known
as the Callow miniature plant, consisting of one small
two-compartment Harz jig, one small Wilfley table,
one amalgamating plate, one set hydraulic classifiers,
one set cyanide agitators, one automatic feeder. This
plant is driven by a 1/8 horse-power motor and stands
on a hopper bottom tank divided into three compart-
ments. It is a complete ore-dressing plant and cyanide
mill, and tests quantities of ore ranging in amounts
from 25 to 400 pounds. While it is merely a model,
it is a complete and accurate imitation of such a plant
for industrial operation.
The class in ore dressing makes complete conecentra-
tion] tests .by the Callow miniature plant. The ores
treated are copper and tungsten. The work is an illus-
tration of stage crushing and stage concentration, the
usual method with sulphide ores. It is the kind of a
test that is often made for mining companies, who
send ore to the university to be tested for process,
because of the skill of the ore-testing department in
making tests, and the mechanical facilities. The student
works out the results on a flow sheet, to suit the par-
ticular ore, and finally reports the saving that he has
made in the test. The flow sheet that the student has
worked out as being the most desirable should be the
proper routine for a large plant treating this ore. Thus
the mining companies make use of the university system
in determining the best methods to employ.
The class in gold and silver treat these ores. The
gold ore plate amalgamation run and the tails aro
eyanided by the ‘‘all slime’’ process, thus a high extrac-
tion is secured (98 per cent). The silver ore test run is
a very interesting process. The student determines the
acidity of the ore to enable him to add the correct
amount of alkali to neutralize acidity, then he makes
some preliminary agitation tests on fine ground ore,
using stirrers of the Callow miniature plant. Next he
makes some percolation tests by glass percolators.
Extraction and consumption of cyanide are thus deter-
mined. The student then crushes coarse material
(20-mesh) and treats it.
One of the requirements of the university curriculum
is a senior trip to the mines, with the instructor in the
mining department. The mining underground lasts a
period of six weeks, but most of the men put in at least
two summers’ work, and many have spent the summer
The Blacksmith’s and Machine Shop.
12 SCIENTIFIC 3
12 May 11, 1912 AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897 297 |
In the Chemical Laboratory eS
298 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No, 1897
for several years at mining. This gives the students
a knowledge of mining not obtained by the average
eastern student, as it gives him a practical education
by actual employment in the mines. Such is the interest
in mineralogy and metallurgy that the majority of
students, no matter what branch of engineering they
take up in school, go into mining sooner or later. A
smaller number find work with railroads, but some of
these later take up mining. Any graduate who desires
to get employment in a mine finds a place with some
company and generally secures a good position because
his instruction has been thorough.
The opportunities for getting object lessons in mining
education are shown by the fact that nearly a fourth
of the copper of the United States is mined within
one hundred miles of the university. The direetors of
the greatest copper company are so interested in the
work of the university that they presented it witha
gymnasium, and one member of the company has given
a fund for purchase of scientific instruments for research
work. The co-operation of the mining companies with
the institution is invaluable in its influence upon the
seientific instruction. The laboratory for microscopic
work is equipped with seven petrographic microscopes,
including both American and foreign make; one Z@os.
binocular for opaque work, also models for illustra
axes of elasticity and spherical projection.
The study of electricity, aside from its use in engineer-
ing work, is considered of much importance in the
university curriculum. Here, again, is noticed the
very complete display of electrical devices. A lecture
room, seating forty persons, is fitted with every modern
convenience, such as lights, water, gas, heliostat, alter-
nating and direct currents of great range, an opaque
May 11, 1912
projection lantern, elevated seats, shutters for darkening
the room, ete. Two large main laboratory rooms supply
space for mechanical and electrical work, while separate
special rooms are devoted to heat, sound, light, mag-
netism and research work.
A carpenter’s shop, a repair and store room, a photo-
graphic dark and enlarging room, and a constant tem-
perature room are provided. A pendulum seismograph
will be installed in the magnetic laboratory and a.
special space has been provided for a 55-foot Foucault
pendulum and the study of falling bodies. An 8-inch
induction coil with storage and X-ray accessories is
used in the study of high-tension electricity. This
has recently been supplemented by a large Oudin
resonator and a mercury interrupter, manufactured by
Cox, and a Tesla high-frequency coil of the Elster and
Geitel type.
Stereoscopic Vision
The Crossed and Direct Method of Viewing Objects
By Frederic Campbell, Sc.D., 2d Vice-President, Department of Astronomy, BrooKlyn Institute
Tue article by R. W. Carleton, in a recent number of
the Scientivic AMERICAN, entitled “Stereoscopic Effects
Without Apparatus,” calls attention to a remarkable
method of vision, with which he claims that it is ‘possible,
to obtain stereoscopic effects without the use of any
stereoscopic apparatus.”” The experiment of looking
Fig. 1.—Ilustrating straight stereoscopic vision.
left eye, RI, right eye; LP, left picture; RP, right
picture; the lines of vision to these are nearly
parallel, and the pictures blend into one in the
far distance; C, comet in each picture, the two
nearer than the centers of the pietures, requiring
the eyes to become slightly crossed, as in viewing
near objects, thus making the comet appear nearer
than the backgr und; the dotted lines to the comet
picture would meet far this side of the meeting-
place of the unbroken lines. (Drawn by the Author.)
“eross-eyed” at two identical pictures, which he proposes,
is a difficult one, and yet, in the experience of the present
writer, not impracticable. For not only the two sides of a
regular stereoscopic picture, but also two pictures of any
kind that are exactly alike (unless they be very large), and
even two similar objects, or four or eight, I have found
can be treated in this way.
Standing in the gymnasium before two Indian clubs or
dumbbells hanging on the wall, I have lookec at the left
with the right eye, and at the right with the left eye, the
two clubs or dumbbells merging into a single one, stand-
ing near the eyes, at the point where the lines of vision
cross. But, having done this with two clubs, I found it
could be done with two pairs of clubs, and then with four
pairs of clubs, pairs 3 and 4 merging with pairs 1 and 2, so
that | found myself calmly and deliberately surveying a
single pair of pairs, and these several feet nearer my eyes
than the originals. The single clubs, not only, but the
pairs, were necessarily evenly spaced, the distances be-
tween the centers of the pairs being between 2 and 3 feet.
The “rounded beauty” of which Mr. Carleton speaks,
however, I do not discover as it usually appears in the
straight stereoscopic vision, in which each eye looks
straight ahead. Indeed, I question whether it is there,
except in the imagination of the beholder. In ordinary
stereoscopic vision the ‘rounded beauty” of the scene is
obtained by making the two pictures slightly different in
accordance with the theory of perspective. The objects
intended to be seen nearer to the eyes are placed a little
nearer to each other, making it necessary for the eyes to
turn a little toward each other, ‘‘cross-eyed,”’ which is the
way they always do in looking at near objects. The pull
of the eyes toward each other tells us that the object seen
is nearer. Henee, when we give them an artificial pull
and yet obtain a clear image, no matter what its origin,
the mind is impressed with its apparent nearness.
Now, whether one use the straight stereoscopic vision
or the “‘cross-eyed,”’ if the two pictures blended into one
are exactly alike, the eye sees them just as flat on the
paper as in ordinary vision, and there is no “rounded
beauty” whatever. You do not see any further around an
apple, for example, shown in this way, if the two pictures
of the apple are just alike. But if they be different, being
taken from two different points of view, then, with the
straight stereoscopic vision, one obtains perspective,
depth, solidity, space, and the object “stands out” as we
say, round and charming because of its revealed form,
instead of flat and characterless.
But this I do not discover in the cross-eyed vision. It
is true that the blended picture comes near you to the
point where you hold up your pencil or finger and focus
your vision. There it hangs, reduced in size because
really at a distance and not enlarged as would be expected
when brought so near, but beautiful because so sharp and
clear and so etherial, hanging in mid-air. But it has not
obtained perspective by this treatment. As for the per-
spective obtained by the straight stereoscopic vision of a
stereoscope picture, in which the two counterparts
are slightly different, it is a very interesting question
whether that is obtained by viewing it in precisely the
opposite way, that is, cross-eyed instead of straight.
Now, inasmuch as looking cross-eyed at the picture is
reversing the usual way, the result will be the same as if
the two halves of the stereoscopic picture were trans-
posed. As originally printed, the nearer objects are
Fig. 3.—Wire cage, with stereoscopic effect. Note that the two are slightly different. Viewed stereoscopically,
with or without instrument, it appears like a globe, hanging in mid-air, with the minute central circle
nearest observer. Viewed with crossed eyes, all is reversed, the minute circle being farthest from ob-
server. (By permision of Underwood & Underwood.)
slightly nearer each other than the centers, hence look
nearer by making us look cross-eyed; but, when trans-
posed, the hitherto nearer objects are now farther from
each other than the centers, hence require us to look
straighter than ever; and the straighter the look, that is,
the more closely parallel the two lines of vision, the more
distant is the object. So the perspective is entirely re-
LP
LI
(@
Fig. 2.—Illustrating ‘‘cross-eyed”’ stereoscopic vision.
LI, left eye; RI, right eye; LP, left picture; RP,
right picture; C, comet in each picture, the two
nearer than the centers of the pictures, requiring
the crossed eyes to look straighter and making the
comet appear more distant, at C’; BP, blended
picture, where the lines of vision cross; BC, blended
comet, where the lines of vision to the comet cross,
namely, at a point back of the blended picture.
(Drawn by the Author.)
versed when the pictures are transposed, things originally
in the foreground being now in the background. That
this is the effect of the cross-eyed vision is more directly
shown by Fig. 2, wherein the comet, C, is nearer the
comet, C, in the other picture, than are the centers of
those pictures; the lines of sight are thus more nearly
parallel, as they would be for a more distant object;
hence the comet, to the crossed eyes, appears at C’, i.e.,
at the rear of the rest of the picture.
By crossing the eyes you have thus virtually transposed
the two halves of the stereoscopic picture, so that what
was far now appears near, and what was near now ap-
pears far. With an ordinary landscape view this is not
readily perceived; for comparative sizes, lights and
shades all enter into impressions of- distance. But the
proof of the above statements is found in certain simpler
pictures taken as tests.
Mr. Carleton speaks, for example, of a stereographie
view of Brooks’ comet recently printed in the ScrenTiFic
American as affording “great and awe-inspiring delight”
when viewed in the cross-eyed way, “‘without the use of a
stereoscope.”” The comet did not appear on the surface
of the paper,”’ he says, ‘‘but far away in the depths of star
space.” And that is just where he viewed it wrong. It
should not have appeared “far away in the depths of star
space,” but nearer than the stars, which it really was;
and thus it does appear, hanging between us and the
stars, when viewed with the stereoscope, or viewed ster-
‘ eoscopically without the stereoscope; for this straight
and distant vision, the true stereoscopic vision, is also
possible and becomes easy with practice, as the writer
knows from numerous experiments. The truth is, in
accordance with what is said above, the cross-eyed vision
puts the comet back of the stars, making the entire heav-
enly host nearer than the passing comet, which, while
beautiful eng , is not according to fact. A stereoscopi¢
picture ys (Fig. 3) proves the same thing;
viewed straint, one sees into and through the cage very
wonderfully; viewed cross-eyed, what was the front of
the cage now becomes its back. In other words, the cage
is turned inside out.
The cross-eyed vision must, therefore, while most intet-
esting as a proof of optical possibilities, be relegated to
the department of acrobatics; but the straight stereosco
pie vision, alone entitles to the name, because it shows
things as they are and in the perspective to which they
are entitled, is destined to become more and more useful
and entertaining in science and art,
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The
In an article published in a recent number of the
Medical Times, Dr. Jacolyn Van Vliet Manning brings
forward a theory as to the probable mode of propagation
of infantile paralysis. This is, at the present time, as yet
surrounded with considerable mystery, and in fact it is
easier to quote negative evidence such as to exclude cer-
tain modes of propagation, than to point to positive evi-
dence which would give a clue as to the actual mode. Dr.
Manning draws attention to a number of peculiar facts
relating to the disease. Thus poliomyelitis, as it is tech-
nieally called, displays a peculiar caprice in the selection
of its victims. All members of a family may have the
disease, but more commonly one child suffers. This is
generally seen to occur in all epidemics, and repeatedly
in each.
“Cases of poliomyelitis in hospitals, schools and insti-
tutions have rarely been followed by the development of
other cases, while local epidemics have apparently de-
monstrated direct transmission from case to case or by
the healthy intermediate carrier.
“Satisfactory proof that susceptibility to poliomyelitis
varies to any considerable extent is lacking. Although
cases nay vary greatly in severity, from the mildest case
of the arrested type to the rapidly fatal 7 or 8-hour case,
the personal reaction to the infection may be due to indi-
vidual variation of eliminative function, or qualitative
variation of the virus. No proof has been offered that
any person is immune to this infection.
“The contagious nature of poliomyelitis was supported
by Wickman, who traced channels of contact from case
to case throughout many small communities in Sweden.
This theory has been supported by a majority of investi-
gators of epidemics, including the writer, who announced
her belief that the epidemic was transmitted from Scan-
dinavia to the Port of New York and thence to Wiscon-
sin in 1908 (Manning, “Poliomyelitis in Wisconsin,” Wis-
consin Medical Journal, April, 1909), finding at that time
no other credible explanation of the spread of the plague.”
Dr. Manning further points out that the disease is
probably not transmitted by ordinary contagion for the
following reasons:
1. The experimental production of the disease in mon-
keys is by inoculation.
2. Experimental transmission has never been induced
where there was no solution of continuity and where
therefore a possible inoculation can be ruled out.
3. Poliomyelitis artificially induced in monkeys has
never been spontaneously transmitted to animals con-
fined in the same cage or room.
4. The comparative rarity of multiple cases in families.
5. Acute eases of poliomyelitis introduced in wards of
hospitals not followed by a secondary case.
6. Fitful character of the extension of the epidemic in
the United States, evidenced most plainly by the lapse of
three vears between its appearance in New York City and
Washington, D. C., two great cities only a few hours
apart.
7. Frequent epidemics of poliomyelitis in animals pre-
ceding and coincidental with human poliomyelitis may
indicate that man is not the essential host of this disease.
It appears, then, that while the disease is beyond all
question infectious, ordinary contagion, that is to say,
transmission by mere contact or proximity of two persons
does not occur, We must therefore look for some condi-
tion in which the disease germs have direct access vo the
tissues of the body and to the circulation, as in the case
of inoculation. An obvious supposition, in the light of
our present knowledge of other diseases, is that the dis-
tase is insect-carried, especially as it has been found by
the Rockefeller Institute of Research that the virus of the
disease is detectable in circulation in the blood of a mon-
key affected with the disease.
In this connection it is interesting briefly to review the
history of our knowledge regarding insect-carried dis-
eases. The earliest suggestion that the mosquito might
be the carrier of malaria seems to have been made in 1807
by Crawford, an American physician. The matter was
again referred to in 1848 by Nott, of New Orleans, and
again in 1883 by King, of Washington, D. C. Laveran,
who discovered the parasite of the disease in. 1880, in
1891 declared his adherence to the mmsgitive theory.
The German physician, Koch, is also said tu th ve sug-
gested the transmission of malaria through the agency of
the mosquito. In 1894 Manson, of Dublin, appeared as
4 Vigorous supporter of the mosquito theory as best cal-
culated to explain the various conditions of the problem,
and a little later Sir Ronald Ross took up the work with
Steat energy, and to him is due the principal credit in
finally establishing our full knowledge of the conditions
in the transmission of malaria through the mosquito
anopheles. It is now known that the mosquito is also
sponsible for the transmission of yellow fever, a theory
first advanced by Dr. Carlos Finlay, of Havana, in 1891.
lt is also supposed that the mosquito bas a part in the
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 1897
Mode of Propagation of Infantile Paralysis
The Bedbug as a Spreader of Disease
dissnination of leprosy and several other diseases. The
trani, nission of diseases by the common house-fly has been
disewSsed so much at length in various technical and pop-
ular journals, that its mere mention here will suffice. The
réle played by the rat and its flea in the propagation of
the plague is also well known to every layman at the
present time. A case is also on record of disease trans-
mitted by ants, and roaches have been suspected of the
same agency. The bedbug has been said to be respon-
sible for the spread of leprosy, tuberculosis and other
diseases. The great authority on the subject of insect-
borne diseases, and especially malaria, is Sir Ronald
Ross, whose name has already been mentioned, and who
has of recent years also developed the mathematical dis-
cussion of the problems involved, his work in this direc-
tion having been published in his book, ‘“*Prevention of
Malaria,” second edition, Murray Company, and also in
a brief abstract in a paper published in Nature, October
5th, 1911.
After this historical digression let us return to our
main subject, namely, the transmission of infantile paral-
ysis through some insect bite. Dr. Manning points out
that in order to maintain that poliomyelitis could be
transmitted by blood-sucking insects, it would be neces-
sary to prove that:
a. “The virus of poliomyelitis permeated the blood-
stream of the host during some portion of the attack,
which, as mentioned above, is’the case.
b. “Any insect to merit consideration as an obligatory
factor in the transmission of poliomyelitis must be of
almost world-wide distribution and perennial pervalence,
for poliomyelitis has occurred in all latitudes from Aus-
tralia to Canada, and while epidemics have been confined
almost exclusively to the warm months, scattered cases
have been reported in the United States in every month
of the year. (Frost. “Field Investigation of Poliomye-
litis,”” Public Health Report No. 55.)
“Of the blood-sucking insects which are commonly
known in the United States, the mosquito, louse, bedbug,
flea and tick, the mosquito, flea and tick are ruled out as
they are distinctly annual and seasonal epidemics in the
North Temperate Zone of North America, where epi-
demics of poliomyelitis have been most prevalent. The
family of pediculi can also be ruled out as, unlike the
mosquito and bedbug, they do not inject a blood-ferment
while withdrawing blood of the host. They are also much
less frequently encountered in ordinary American life
than the other two pests, as personal cleanliness disbars
their existence.
“The bedbug, cimez lectularis, is the blood-sucker who
conforms to the requirements laid down by Dr. Frost,
and to other requirements which an insect must fulfil to
‘merit consideration as an obligatory factor in the trans-
mission of poliomyelitis.’
“We will take up these requirements one at a time in a
questionaire, and observe how closely cimex lectularis
merits such consideration:
Cimex Lectularis.
Distribution? World wide.
Perennial? In artificially warmed domicile of any
sort, and mild climates.
Seasonal increase in numbers?
mously in summer months.
Increased in numbers by modern living? Steam and
furnace heated tenements and lodging houses are choice
breeding places for cimex.
Habitat? The domicile of man: beds, box-beds, fold-
ing beds, bedding; clothing; crevices about house; par-
titions of wood; chimneys.
May infest locality? Yes, tenements, hotels, stations,
unholstered car seats and furniture, and generally insani-
tary homes, summer camps, and waterclosets.
Food? The blood of man; a blood-sucking parasite.
Preferred subject? The young child; the red-blooded
healthy adult.
Transmitted by human carrier? With great frequency,
especially in summer, due to increase in numbers and
travel.
Easy transmiss‘on from bed of sickness? Any visitor
whose clothing ¢»mes in contact with bedding may ac-
quire one or more if present. ~
Comparatively even distribution among social strata?
Present day methods of transportation might transmit
cimex to any dressing room however exquisite, and all
the well-to-do are not cleanly, while many of the poor are
unavailably clean when juxtaposed with the unsanitary.
Children more frequently attacked than women? The
democratic child frequently acquires cimex from an
insanitary associate.
Men more frequently attacked than women?
Multiplies enor-
Men
acquire cimex in many public places which women rarely
frequent.
“The bedbug has long been tolerated, as the mosquito
and septic fly were until recently, as a disgusting but
harmless nuisance, yet he and his kind seem to have
wakened suspicion as to their harmlessness many years
ago, for Columella in the century before the Christian
era, wrote of ‘insects armed with stings, and pestilent
- ereeping things from which came obscure dis-
eases.’
“Dr. Lovett in investigating 150 cases of poliomyelitis
in the Massachusetts epidemic of 1909, found cimex lec-
tularis present in 31 homes of the 142 families repre-
sented; that is to say 20 per cent of the 150 cases were
known to have been exposed to attacks of cimex. Had
these 142 families composed a small community, it is con-
eeivable, each of the 150 cases might have been so bitten.
(Lovett. “Poliomyelitis,” in Massachusetts Bulletin State
Board, June, 1910.)
“If the premise is granted that cimex may be the
agency of transmission of poliomyelitis, we would expect
to find the disease endemie in certain houses. Wickman
noted such apparent endemicity, and reported it as proof
of the contagious nature of poliomyelitis:
“The disease was not generally spread through the city
(Stockholm), but was particularly localized in certain
parts, so that in neighboring houses, groups of eases of
three, five or seven, occurred. In one instance there oe-
curred a case in one dwelling house from which the family
moved on October Ist. A second case developed in
this same house not long after the entrance of the family
that moved into the rooms vacated by the first family.”
(Wickman)
If cimex proves to be the usual agént in the transmis-
sion of poliomyelitis, there will be explained the reason
for non-development of secondary cases of the disease in
the well-ordered hospital or ward. The modern hospital,
with fumigation and removal of patients’ clothing, and
frequent fumigation of wards and rooms does not harbor
this pest. The unclean hospital ward, which harbored
cimex might then be responsible for the rapidly fatal
institutional disease form of poliomyclitis.
If cimex is the guilty agent of transmission, that would
explain the fact that the epidemic of poliomyelitis in
Nebraska was checked in mid-summer by the establish-
ment of isolation, quarantine and post-fumigation.
“To summarize:
1. “The artificial propagation of poliomyelitis is by
inoculation.
2. “The method of spontaneous production of polio-
myelitis in man being unknown, we are warranted in
the assumption that it takes place by inoculation.
3. “A blood-sucking insect is the agent of transmission
by inoculation of several acute epidemic infectious dis-
eases (e. g. malaria and yellow fever, the mosquito.
Relapsing fever and kala-azar, the bedbug. Suspected:
pellagra, the sand-fly.)
4. “Cimex lectularis, a blood-sucking insect, of world-
wide distribution, perennial in habit, seasonal in increase,
domiciled in the home, bedding and clothing of man, with
the habit of migrating from sick to well, fulfills all re-
quirements needed to explain the epidemiological pecu-
liarities of poliomyelitis in man.
“Although the case gainst cimex is not yet proved, in
view of the above would it not be well for the public to
be informed of the strong probability that the bedbug is
the agent in transmission of poliomyelitis, and to aecom-
plish the wholesale destruction of this omnipresent para-
site before the summer of 1912 opens?
Fumigation by lodine.
As is well known iodine is one of the most powerful
antisepties and has for some time past taken the leading
place among the drugs used for this purpose by physi-
cians. The most recent development in this direction
is a process devised by Dr. Louge, of Marseilles, who
has discovered a simple means of producing iodine
fumes which are very readily applied to any part under
treatment; Dr. Louge’s process, as described in La
Nature, consists in dipping a wad of cotton in iodoform
powder, and then lighting it at a point which has been
left free from iodoform powder. The burning tuft of
cotton liberates violet vapors of iodine, which can
either be directly applied to the part to be treated, or,
being considerably heavier than air, may be allowed
to collect in a beaker and may then be transferred, for
instance by means of a syringe, to the structure under
treatment.
In making use of the new process it must of course
be remembered that iodine is very irritating to the
eyes and the air passages. Care must therefore be
taken to cover the patient’s eyes and avoid breathing
the vapor. The place where the process is carried out
should be thoroughly well protected from draughts, as
otherwise the iodine fumes spread throughout the
room and become very objectionable. Nickeled objects
are badly attacked by the vapor,
12
ning
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isposed
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-
May 11, 1919
Fig. |.—Three-hundred Horse-power Four-cylinder Oil Engine for Experimental Tugboat ‘“‘Schlepp.”
A High-Power Oil Engine for Tugboat Service
Another Step in the Spread of the Marine Diesel Engine
Tue accompanying illustration (Fig. 1) shows one
of the recent high-power German marine oil engines
of 300 horse-power capacity of the four-cylinder type
as constructed at the works of the Aktien-Gesellschaft
“Weser” in Bremen for the experimental oil driven
tugboat “‘Schlepp.”
The accompanying drawings (Figs. 2 and 3) show
the details of construction of similar engines of the
Diesel type built at Bremen having one and two cylinders,
respectively, and developing 20 horse-power to 150
horse-power each for the former and 40 to 250 horse-
power for the latter, and weighing from 14,300 pounds
to 127,600 pounds. These Diesel engines vary in normal
speed from 240 revolutions for the small units to 160
revolutions for the large units.
The crude oil consumption per horse-power hour
with a fuel having 24,500 thermal units per pound,
varies from 0.41 pound to 0.66 pound according to
horse-power capacity and whether operated at 4, 4, %
or a full load. "
The continual increase in the use of oil engines for
power purposes in German industrial plants and in
agriculture, has justly directed attention toward this
type of engine. The increasing price of fuel and the
need of an engine which makes the most profitable
use of the fuel, have favored the introduction of the
oil engine, because, of all known prime movers, it is
the one which works most efficiently from an economical
point of view.
The following table shows the proportion of 100
thermal units converted into useful work in various
engines employed at the present time and the distribu-
tion of the remaining loss of heat.
‘
)
‘
/
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Se
Fig, 2.—Single-cylinder Weser Engine.
100 Thermal Units Give.
Driving Engine.
The Loss Divides
Itself Into:
on. Cooling
Water or Ex- ==
aust Con-
densation. |
Non-condensing
Engine for super-
heated steam with
condensation. ... .
Suction gas engine
Weser oil engine. .
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yan 800 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT) No. 1897 fF
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May 11, 1912
It is pointed out that of the heat inherent in the
motor oil 33 per cent and even more is converted into
useful work by the Weser engine, whereas in the case
of other engines this item amounts to only 9 per cent
to 20 per cent. The Weser engine consumes 0.4 to
0.5 pound of motor oil per horse-power hour, which
in the case of fuel with the average price of 90 cents
per 100 pounds corresponds to about 4 to 5 cents per
horse-power hour. When increasing the load with
continuous working, the consumption of fuel per horse-
power hour increases to a much smaller extent than
is the case with all other types of engines.
The stationary Weser engine is of the four-stroke-
eyele type. One side of the piston only closing one
working space, work is done by every fourth stroke.
The individual cycles of action are the following: At
the first movement of the piston toward the crank
shaft: Air intake. At the following movement of the
piston away from the crank shaft: Compression of the
air sucked in, whereby the latter becomes heated.
The second movement of the piston toward the crank
shaft is the working stroke, with slow introduction and
combustion of the fuel and consequent expansion. At
the following movement of the piston away from the
crank shaft the combustion gases are expelled. The
introduction of the fuel is accomplished by a fuel pump
which conducts the erude oil into the valve space of
a fuel valve B noted in drawing (Fig. 2) whence it is
injected by means of highly compressed air (higher
than the pressure of the compression in the cylinder)
during the working stroke into the cylinder space.
The introduced quantity of fuel is regulated by a
regulator, according to the load of the engine. The
air necessary for injecting, is obtained from the air
pump L. This compressed air is also employed to start
the motor.
The stationary oil engines of the ‘‘Weser’’ type are
constructed vertically, the frame being cast in one
piece with the eylinder and mounted on a common
bed plate.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No. 897
VI
Fig. 3.—Two-cylinder Weser Engine.
The working space is closed by the cylinder cover C
noted in drawing (Fig. 2). The eylinder and cylinder
cover are cooled by water; the latter is fitted with
a suction valve S', a fuel valve B, an exhaust valve A,
and a starting valve A‘.
All valves are in separate valve cages, ground into
the cylinder cover. The valves are consequently readily
accessible and each can be removed without difficulty.
The valves are driven from a common cam shaft by
means of cam disks and levers.
The fuel pump controlled by the regulator is also
driven from the same eam shaft while the air pump L
is a two-stage pump driven directly by the motor.
The construction of the air pump valves is executed
in the most scrupulous and accurate manner and permits
a pressure production of up to 1,400 pounds per square
inch.
The lubrication of the cylinder and piston pin is effected
by a separate lubricating oil pump. The main bearings
and cam shaft bearings are executed as lubricating
ring bearings. All the remaining important parts are
lubricated automatically from a central oil distributing
vessel.
The construction of high speed engines differs essen-
tially from that already described only by the fact that
each individual part is built to correspond with the
requirements of high speed working, while, as a rule,
the lubrication of the main bearings and crank pin is
accomplished by a separate pressure pump which con-
tinually forees the oil through all parts of the principal
driving gear. The main bearings, on account of the
high strain placed upon them, are here afforded an
ample water cooling.
The accessory parts belonging to this complete
two-cylinder oil engine may be noted in drawing (Fig. 3).
The air plant consists of two starting receivers A and
the tank for air supply Z. The former contain the
highly compressed air necessary for starting the engine,
the latter the air for injecting the crude oil into the
combustion chamber of the engine.
301
These air vessels are fed by air pumps. The erude
oil plant consists of a storage tank V, which has a
eapacity sufficient for 10 hours working and is filled
from a tank of crude oil stock by means of a wing pump
operated” by hand.
The filtering vessels F serve to repeatedly purify
the erude oil; from there it flows to the fuel pumps
on the engine. The cooling-water plant consists of
a cooling-water pump driven by the engine by means
of small belt pulleys. The consumption of cooling
water per horse-power hour amounts to 2 gallons in
the case of the large engines and up to 3 gallons in the
ease of small ones, with an inlet of 10 deg. Cent. and
an outlet temperature of 70 deg. Cent.
The indicator diagram of this oil engine shows a
constant fluctuation of forces without any sudden
increase of pressure. The combustion is slow and
noiseless and takes place without any shock, and con-
sequently the wear and tear of the engine is insignificant
and its durability is equal to that of steam and other
power engines of the best construction.
The combustion of the crude oil is accomplished under
theoretically perfeet conditions of pressure and = tem-
perature. The effeetive utilization of the heat
tained in the fuel rises as high as 35 per cent with an
oil engine of this type. The engine consequently works
cheaply and as a result of the perfect combustion causes
no annoyance by smoke or smell of the exhaust gases,
a very notable advantage when putting up plants in
towns.
The governing is performed by changing the quantity
of the fuel supply. The engine works without any
shock and quietly under varying loads and consequently
is specially adapted for driving electrical generators.
The starting of the engine takes place by means of
compressed air, as the pressure necessary for the com-
bustion must first be produced. The engine can be
started in a few seconds without previously heating a
boiler or producer and during interruptions in working
no fuel is consumed.
con-
The Problem of Selenium
Tue behavior of selenium toward light is one of the
many familiar facets for which it is very difficult to find
anexplanation. Why this substance should conduct elec-
tricity better when light falls upon it and then come back
to its first state when in the dark is a problem which has
long puzzled physicists. The question is complicated
enough in itself, and a further complication has arisen
from the discovery of what are called abnormal selenium
cells for which the effect of light is the reverse of the ordi-
hary, that is, electric resistance increases when light falls
upon them. Prof. C. Ries, a Greman scientist, has made
some interesting experiments upon this action of light.
These seem to show that the effect here is not of the same
hature as in the ordinary case, nor is it due to similar
causes. The negative or reversed effect seems t¢ be pro-
duced by parasite actions among which muisv« tals the
main one. Some selenium cells are so sensitive to the
moisture of the air that Dr. Ries could use them as
hygrometers. Hence we need to operate in dry air or at
least to have constant conditions of moisture if consistent
tesults are to be obtained.
As regards the usual effect of light in lowering the
dleetric resistance of selenium, the various theories pro-
bosed by Hesehus, Weigel, Berndt, Mare, Schrott, Pfund,
Kruyt and others, may be divided broadly into two
lasses. According to theories of the first kind selenium
txists in two allotropic forms which are in equilibrium.
The first form, or A, is produced by melting selenium at a
low temperature (about 130 deg. Cent.). Thisis known as
the Vitreous or shining form, and resembles sealing wax.
It is almost a perfect non-conductor. By heating it at
200 deg. Cent. for a long time it turns to the B state and is
now of a dull gray color, conducting electricity and sensi-
tive to light. This is the form which is seen in selenium
cells. According to one theory, the heating produces a
solid solution of one kind in the other, tending to produce
more of the B kind, so that light has the same influence as
heating. But Dr. Ries thinks that such a theory is open
to many objections, since it is known that light does not
cause any appreciable heating of the selenium, so that
heat cannot here be producing a chemical change. It is
found that at —185 deg. Cent. selenium is almost as sensi-
tive to light as usual, and this result seems to preclude
any theory which ascribes the effect to chemical action,
for at such extremely low temperatures chemical action is
almost wholly suspended. It is not clear either how the
form B could come back to form A when returned to the
dark. Recently Agostini and Berndt found that electri-
cal waves act in the same way as light, so that a chemical
action due to a heating effect does not seem probable.
Dr. Ries thinks that the second theory, which assumes
a purely mechanical action, is much better. Wilson's
experiments show that dry iodide of silver when acted
upon by ultra-violet light gives an electric discharge,
while violet rays have no effect. On the contrary, the
electric resistance of the iodide is affected almost exclu-
sively by the violet rays, and toward the ultra-violet there
is no response. Thus we are led to think that the former
electric effect is due to the tearing off of electrons under
the action of the ultra-violet rays. Such rays will excite
great resonance effects in the mass of a substance such as
selenium and cause it to send off corpuscles at a high
speed. Ordinary light shares this action somewhat, but
here the speed is much less and the corpuscles are not
sent off but remain within the mass and may increase its
conductivity. But with most metals, which are good
conductors, and have a good number of free clectrons in
the normal state, such action is not felt. Selenium being
a poor conductor, is, according to this theory, much
affected by light for this reason.
The Cause of the Souring of Milk in Thunderstorms
—Everyhody is familiar with the fact that milk is
more apt to turn sour in stormy weather than at other
times. The cause of this has been a matter of con
siderable mystery, but some light seems to be shed on
the situation by A. Trillat. who has shown that minute
traces of gaseous products of putrefaction favor the
development of lactic ferments. THenee, any fall in
atmospheric pressure which encourages the liberation
of such gases from various sources will indirectly assist
the souring of milk, and, for the matter of that, the
decay of various putrescible materials, That such
liberation of gases does actually occur at times of
barometric depression is rendered manifest enough by
the characteristic smell which the earth is found to
exhale at such times. Mr. Trillat has, moreover, posi-
tively confirmed his theory by exposing samples of
milk in the neighborhood of substances giving rise to
putrefactive gases. On diminishing the pressure, so as
to cause the liberation of the gases, it is found that
the milk is apt to turn sour.—Cosmos.
KAY
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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No, 1897
May 11, 1919
The Present Status of the Diesel Engine in Europe.—I.’
And a Few Reminiscences of the Pioneer Work in America
Sivce its first appearance in 1897, the Diesel engine
has been built by the thousand in the best factories of all
industrial countries. It has been proved to be a most
reliable engine when properly built, and to-day the
thermal or indicated efficiency reaches 48 per cent in
this engine, and the effective or brake efficiency reaches
in some eases 35 per cent of the heat value of the fuel.
The Diesel engine is the engine which converts the
heat of the natural fuel into work in the cylinder itself
without any previous transforming process, and which
utilizes it as far as the present standard of science per-
mits; it is, therefore, the simplest and at the same time
the most economical prime mover.
These two facts explain its suceess; it lies in the new
principle of the internal working process and not in con-
structional improvements of alterations of older types
of engines. A further reason for this success is that the
Diesel engine has broken the monopoly of coal, and has
solved the problem of using liquid fuel for power produe-
tion in its simplest and most general form. It has become
for all liquid fuels what the steam engine and gas engine
are for coal, but in a much simpler and more economical
way. The truth of this statement was strikingly proved
at the Turin exhibition of last year. At this exhibition,
in the large Machinery Hall, a steam turbine and a large
Diesel engine, both made by Franco Tosi of Milan, and
set up on the same stand were worked together with the
same liquid fuel. The boilers belonging to the plant were
fitted with Koerting nozzles for burning crude oil. The
difference between the two plants was, therefore, this:
For the working of the steam engine, the whole boiler
plant with its chimney, full supply apparatus, purifica-
tion plant for feed water, with feed pumps, extensive
steam pipes, condensation plant, with water pumps, and
an enormous water consumption, had to be provided,
with the final result of consuminz two and one-half or
more times the fuel per horse-power required by the
Diesel engine standing beside it. The latter, being an
entirely independent engine without any auxiliary plant,
took up its erude fuel automatically and consumed it
direct in its cylinders without any residue or smoke.
Thus, the Diesel engine has doubled the resources of
mankind as regards power production, and has made new
and hitherto unutilized products of nature available for
motor power. The Diese! engine has thereby exercised a
far-reaching influence on the liquid fuel industry, which
is at the present time advancing more rapidly than was
previously conceivable. This is not the place to discuss
this matter in detail, but I wish to mention that, owing
to the interest which petroleum producers have taken in
this important question, new petroleum sources are con-
tinually being developed, and new oil districts discovered.
Moreover, it has been proved by recent geological re-
~ * Paper read before the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, April 30th, 1912.
By Dr. Rudolph Diesel
searches not only that there is probably on the globe as
much, or perhaps even more liquid fuel than coal, but
also that it is more conveniently distributed as regards
its geographical position. These facts, which are indis-
putable nowadays, have gradually silenced those who
objected to too great a development of the Diesel engine
for fear of insufficient stores of liquid fuel.
That the auxiliary industries of petroleum production
are also considerably influenced is shown by the great
increase which the transport industry for liquid fuel has
experienced in recent times, especially the great develop-
ment of tank vessels which are, or will be mostly driven
by Diesel engines.
But with all this, the influence of the Diesel engine in
the world’s industries is not exhausted. As early as the
year 1899 I utilized in my experimental engine the by-
product of coal distillation and coke plants, such as tar,
and creosote oils, with the same satisfactory results as
with natural liquid fuels, but at that time the quality of
these oils was generally too inferior for their use in the
Diesel engine, and it was, moreover, subject to continual
variations. It is only in recent years that the chemical
industries interested in the matter have, by improved
methods of fractioning and refining, combined with more
careful selection of the material, succeeded in supplying
fuel of a constant and regular quality without the draw-
backs of the crude tar oils used previously. These prod-
ucts—the tar and tar oils—are thus to-day definitely
brought into the sphere of activity of the Diesel engine.
This fact is, perhaps, not of so great an importance for
the United States on account of its richness in natural
oil, but it is of the utmost importance for European coun-
tries and especially for those countries which do not have
an oil production of their own, and it may be of some
interest to state that, for instance, the tar production of
Germany is sufficient for more than five milliards of
horse-power hours per year, which means about one and
three-quarter millions of horse-power running 300 days
for 10 hours each all the year. in case of war cutting off
the supply of foreign fuel, this quantity would be suffi-
cient for running the whole fleet, war and mercantile, and
for providing in the meantime the power for the inland
industries as far as necessary.
From what has been just stated, it will be seen that
che Diesel engine is having an increasing influence on
two other industries, the manufacture of gas and coke,
the by-products of which have become so important for
power production that an enormous business is at present
connected with them. It is especially noteworthy that
every town gas works of modern construction, and every
coke works can be arranged to generate electric power
by using its tars in Diesel engines, and one fact stands
out clearly in this connection, namely, that coal which
seemed to be most threatened by the liquid fuels will,
on the contrary, gain a new and wider ground of applica-
Ether’
tion through the Diesel engine. As tar and tar oils ar
from three to five times better utilized in the Diesel
engine than coal in the steam engine, a much better and
more economical utilization of coal is obtained if, instead
of being burned under boilers on grates in a wasteful Way,
it is first transformed into coke and tar by distillation,
Coke is used in metallurgical and other general heating
purposes; from a part of the tar the valuable by-produets
are first extracted and undergo further processes in the
chemical industry, while the tar oils and combustible
by-products, and a great part of the tar itself are burned
in the Diesel engine under extraordinarily favorable eop.
ditions.
It is evident that these circumstances are of unequal
importance and value for different countries, of which
some are exclusive coal countries, others exclusive oj]
countries, and others again mixed coal and oil countries,
like the United States. It is difficult to predict what
development will take place in a given country, but it js
certain that the possibility of burning the by-product of
gas works and coke ovens in the Diesel engine has had jn
furope the consequence of making the different coun.
tries independent as regards their supply of liquid fuel,
by preventing the increases of price for the natural liquid
fuel and the establishment of trusts or monopoly com.
panies. This condition is now reached in Europe, where
we have definitely broken the monopolies in liquid fuel
oil, not by laws or artificial means but by the invincible
force of scientific investigation and industrial progress
before which the mightiest of us has to bow.
From what has been said, the following statement
may be made: The proper development of the utilization
of fuel which has already been started and is now making
rapid progress is this: On the one hand liquid fuel in
Diesel engines, and on the other hand, gas fuel also in
the form of gasified coke in the gas engines; solid fuel as
little possible for steam power generation, but as muchas
possible in the refined form of coke for all other heating
and metallurgical purposes.
It is not generally known that it is also possible to
burn vegetable oils and animal oils in the Diesel engine
without any difficulty. I made the first trials with earth-
nut oil at the Paris Exhibition in 1999, and have sinee
then repeated them with castor oil and palm oil, and also
with animal oils. ‘The use of vegetable oils may seem
insignificant to-day but such oils may become in course
of time of the same importance as some natural mineral
oils and the tar products are at the present time. One
cannot tell what part these oils will play in the colonies of
the future. In any ease, they make it certain that motor
power can still be produced from the heat of the sun,
which is always available for agricultural purposes, even
when all our natural stores of solid and liquid fuel are
exhausted.
To he continued.
A Summary of the Evidence For and Against Its Existence
By P. G. Nutting, Associate Physicist, Bureau of Standards
Tue whole of theoretical ether-physies has been pro-
foundly modified within the past two decades. Many
of the fundamental concepts of electricity, gravitation,
radiation and even matter itself have been revised from
their foundations. Our task to-day is to examine the
storm center, the ether. In anticipation, it may be stated
that the task will prove not to be a mortuary one, but
rather one of removing and getting rid of rubbish. The
new ether is the old ether freed from useless and ineon-
gruous attributes.
What we wish to know about the ether is whether it
exists or not, what are its nature and properties, and
what are its relations to electricity, gravitation, radia-
tion, induction and chemical affinity. Material bearing
on these problems is seanty and we can do little more
than review the experimental facts and their interpreta-
tion, contrasting their present interpretation with that
of twenty years ago and placing in their proper setting
the more recent important discoveries.
First then as to the existence of the ether. We shall dis-
cuss first the evidence in favor of an ether and then sum
the evidence against it. The older reasons for supposing
existence of ether hold as forcibly as they ever did and
to these have been added new ones of some significance.
of Standards, February 5th, 1812. and published in the Journal
of the Washington Academy of Sci
1. There is the old question of action at a distance.
Wherever two objects are attracted toward or repelled
from each other and there is no material connecting link
such as a wire or pulsating fluid, between them, it has
always been customary to put the burden upon an imma-
terial medium. Gravitational attraction, electrical and
magnetic attraction and repulsion are of this nature.
Chemical affinity should probably be included but some
hold that a material link actually holds the atoms to-
gether.
In my opinion not much weight can be attached to
action at a distance as evidence for the existence of an
ether. The assumption of an ether is doubtless the sim-
plest explanation of the facts, but it is certainly not the
only possible explanation. It is easy to imagine an inter-
vening medium pulled by one body and itself pulling a
second body. However, in imagining such a medium,
we are endowing it with mechanical properties and with
such extreme properties as no known material p»ssesses.
In discarding the mechanical assumption we may either
assume a non-mechanieal ether or else assume that these
forces really belong to some higher mechanical system in
which the apparent action at a distance is in reality
contact action. Perhaps there are still other alternatives.
I merely cite these two to show how far we are from a
final disposition of the problem.
2. The propagation of electromagnetic energy from one
body to another. Radiation is emitted by one body and
received after an interval of time by another. Where
and what was this energy during that interval of time’
Until recently, these questions were readily answered;
radiation travels as wave energy, where waves are there
is motion, where motion is there is something that mores,
namely, the ether. At present with an ether devoid of
mechanical properties, there are wide differences o
opinion as to just how electromagnetic energy travels
through space, but if we knew how it is propagated
through any material di-electric, we could very probably
give at ézast a tentative explanation of how it travels
from (Prancy to another.
So . sr as we now know, such energy could be prop®
gated through void space only in corpuscular form. If ¥
assume corpuscular light, we have to contend with 4
solid array of firmly established facts. Further, electt”
magnetic theory itself shows that energy thus propagated
is essentially allernating in character and in definite
relations to the direction of propagation. To my mind,
all the evidence afforded by the propagation of radiation
through space is against that space being void and 1"
favor of an ether with very definite electric and magnet!
but without mechanical properties.
3. A third group of evidence bearing on the existen
of the ether consists in those phenomena indicating ®
storage of energy in the neighborhood of an electt®
tire!
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May 11, 1912
charge in actual motion. These phenomena correspond
with self induction in the case of ordinary electric cur-
rents. Cathode ray particles, the Beta particles from
radium and similar objects carrying electric charges with
high velocities, carry more energy than corresponds with
their material mass and velocity, electro-magnete energy
of the adjacent medium. This may even be separated
from the matter and charge and measured as energy in
the form of Réntgen or of Gamma rays. -
These phenomena, to my mind, supply the most direct
evidence of the existence of a medium. If there were no
medium how could a moving charge carry or conduct
along with itself, outside itself energy of motion. How
could a bullet moving in void space possess energy of
motion exterior to itself? It may be thought that the
assumption of lines and tubes of force as physical entities
would provide an escape from the assumption of a me-
dium. But such an assumption merely displaces the
dilemma. If we consider that the region adjacent to a
moving charge is filled with actual tubes of force instead
of merely being an electromagnetic field, how, without a
medium, could the sizes and shapes of these tunes be a
function of the velocity of the charge?
4. To most of us it is a significant fact that not one of
those whose work has been largely instrumental in the
overthrow of the mechanical theory—H. A. Lorenz,
Poincaré, Planck, Larmor, J. J. Thomson, Schuster,
Whittaker, Heaviside, Wiechert, or Michelson—appears
to question the existence of an ether without mechanical
properties.
The no-ether school may fairly be compared with the
no-atom school of Energetics. If we ignore the ether or
the atom we may treat a considerable portion of physics
quite satisfactorily but we must ignore a great many
vital and significant phenomena in so doing.
The evidence against the existence of the ether falls
into two distinst classes; it is either evidence against the
mechanical theory or else evidence based on the negative
results of attempts to detect ether drift. In the last
analysis these two are the same but we shall discuss them
separately.
The mechanical theory never did have high standing
with thinking men, and but for the support of a few
leading physicists having mechanical minds, would
never perhaps have been developed beyond a mere tenta-
tive hypothesis. We have no reason to think that even
Lord Kelvin himself, chief exponent of the mechanical
theory, ever considered it more than such a working
hypothesis.
We are all familiar with the character and properties
assigned to the mechanical ether; its enormous elasticity
and infinitesimal density to give the proper value to the
velocity of light, its enormous tensile strength to support
gravitational forces, its solid properties to propagate trans-
verse light waves, its fluid properties to permit heavenly
bodies to move through it with fixed velocities, and so on.
The mechanical ether reached its highest development
as a vortex sponge at the close of the last century. It has
passed away, not by violence but by starvation. It
always was a monstrosity and we are only too glad to be
able to diseard it forever.
The stubborn refusal of all phenomena, both natural
and artificial, to show any indication of absolute motion
in space has no direct bearing on the question of the
existence of an electromagnetic ether. The Lorenz con-
traction hypothesis, with the electron theory of matter,
offers us one loophole of eseape from the stubborn facts,
the relativity theory several. It is too early to say what
will be the outcome, into what framework of theory, our
experimental facts will fit with least violence to them-
selves.
Some relativists would have us reject the ether en-
tirely on the ground that it is useless. I, myself, fail to
see how it ean be dispensed with, any more than atoms
or molecules can be dispensed with, nor how anyone, at
all versed in theoretical optics or electricity, can con-
sider it unnecessary.
In short, the mechanical ether of Kelvin, Lodge and
Helmholtz, the ether most of us were brought up on,
has been* proven untenable, the electromagnetic Max-
well ether stands just where it always stood. [t has been
attacked, without much effect, by the extreme relativists,
strengthened by the electron theory and brought into
prominence by the pruning away of the mechanical
theory.
As the conservation of energy is the simplest general
principle which will make perpetual motion impossible,
so the simplest physical law that will permit of discard-
ing all the mechanical attributes of the ether is the prin-
ciple of relativity. Each of these principles are, however,
but limited forms of more general laws.
Before outlining the properties of the ether let us con-
sider briefly its mathematical framework in the newer
physies of which the relativity theory is the most con-
spicuous landmark. Mathematical physicists (Lorenz,
Minkowski, Abraham, Finstein) have found that appar-
ent experimental contradictions disappear and the mathe-
matical framework of physics is greatly simplified if,
instead of referring phenomena to a set of three space
axes and one time axis of reference, they are referred to a
set of four interchangeable axes involving four’ homo-
geneous co-ordinates, three of space and one of time.
There are an infinite number of ways of projecting the
four dimensional (zx, y, z, t) space into the zx, y, z, and ¢
space.
Phenomena that are ambiguous and contradictory
when one projection is used are simple and harmon-
ious with another projection. Further, if a star, say, is
in motion relative to one x, y, 2, t system, it will be at
rest with respect to some other system of axes. Rela-
tivity is a particular instance of the application of these
principles. Already gravitation, that most recondite of
all physical facts, is yielding to this four dimensional
analysis. What we have here to keep in mind is that in
order to explain the lack of ether drift it is unnecessary to
annihilate or ignore either space or time intervals but
merely to generalize our axes of reference.
Three classes of physical phenomena may take place
within or across space void of matter:
(a) Forces may act. Electric, magnetic, gravitational
(and possibly chemical) forces act across space even
when no matter intervenes. Electric and magnetic
forces may be either positive or negative, gravitational
and chemical forces are negative only. The signs of
these forces can not be altered by any intervening me-
dium. Electric forees are a maximum when no matter
intervenes. Magnetic forces are intermediate in value
while gravitational force is the same whatever the inter-
vening medium. The speed of propagation of electric
and magnetie forces across space is a finite constant inde-
pendent of the sign or magnitude of those forces. The
speed of propagation of gravitational forces is certainly
greater than 10" em/see and probably infinite. In no
ease is there any evidence of a force too small or too
great to be propagated; that is of any finite maximum
or minimum load. In other words, there is no evidence
that the ether, if the ether be responsible, has any finite
inertia or viscosity on the one hand or breaking strength
on the other, certainly not in any mechanica! sense.
(b) The absence of matter is no bar to induction, An
electrie charge induces an electric charge as readily
across a vacuum as through matter, and similarly with
magnetic and electromagnetic induction. Induction is
always of the same sign, unlimited in magnitude and
propagated with the speed of light.
(c) Electromagnetic radiation is propagated across a
vacuum as freely as through matter. Beams of light and
electric waves, whatever their’ nature, travel independ-
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No, 1897
ently of each other, i. e., no matter how filled with radi-
ation of one kind and direction a certain space is, neither
the wave length, velocity, direction, damping or polariza-
tion of any other beam traversing the same space at the
same time is in any way affected. Neither electric nor
gravitational strain of any amount produces birefraction
in a space devoid of matter nor does a magnetic field
affect the plane of polarization unless matter be present.
That these effects do exist in matter indicates an actual
mechanical strain. Of the two astronomical methods for
determining the velocity of light, the satellite method
gives the group velocity, while the aberration constant
gives the wave velocity; the close agreement between the
values obtained indicates that wave and group velocity
is the same, hence that there is no dispersion in space,
waves of all frequencies travel with the same velocity.
Two important facts give us clues to the actual magni-
tudes of the constants of the ether (a) the fixed finite
nature of the velocity of propagation (independent of
the motion or intensity of the source) indicates definite
electrodynamical properties in the space traversed, in
fact that
e=(ku)3
We but require a second independent relation between
c, k, and # to determine the actual values of k and « for
the ether. (b) Again, space has a definite fixed capacity
for radiant energy, a function of the frequency of the
radiation, its spectral distribution, the velocity of propa-
gation and the amount already present. Expressions
for what correspond with entropy and specific heat may
be derived without difficulty. This capacity for energy
is dependent upon boundary conditions while the velocity
constant is not.
There exists rather conclusive evidence that short
wave and pulse electromagnetic energy is emitted in
even multiples of a small but finite quantity propor-
tional to the frequency. On the other hand there is no
evidence that such is the case with the long waves of
wireless telegraphy. However, it does not follow that
even light waves or Gamma rays are necessarily propa-
gated in space in these discrete units. A spherical wave
or pulse may be subdivided radially by an absorbing
sereen, a lens or a mirror; tangentially by partial absorp-
tion or reflection or by double refraction and there is no
evidence of any limit to the attenuation a pulse or wave
may suffer during propagation.
To summarize the properties of the ether we may say
that it has no mass and no rigidity in the mechanical
sense and that its parts have no identity. Having no
mass it can have no density, having no rigidity it cannot
be subject to strain. The ether does, however, possess
electromagnetic properties analogous to each of these.
Having no identity, its displacements and velocities,
if it has any, are unknown to us. Tagging the ether with
electromagnetic disturbances is, as we have seen, ineffec-
tive. The core of the matter is this: What kind of a
medium can have real tangibie forces acting at its bound-
aries and conduct real energy with a finite velocity and
yet itself have no inertia or rigidity in any mechanical
sense.
Two of the many possible explanations are suggested.
(1) the properties of the ether may be mechanical after
all but in four dimensions. If this be the case it is for
the mathematical physicist to work out the solution of
the problems of gravitation, induction and radiation;
it would be useless for the experimental physicist working
in three dimensions to seek a solution. Or (2) the prop-
erties of the other may be non-mechanical of unknown
nature. In this case, it is for the experimentalist to find
out the nature of electricity and ponderomotive electrical
effects. The four dimensional mathematical method
appears to be the only one capable of attacking the gravi-
tational field; yet we feel instinctively that the final
solution must be physical and three dimensional.
Trespassers Hilled on Railways
Who Are They ?
By Frank V. jw hiting, General Claims Attorney, New York Central Lines
Recent writers have stated that probably there are
no fewer than 500,000 tramps in America. When we
realize that they arrive at this number by taking as a
basis the number of trespassers on railways killed, and
multiply this by the figure representing the proportion
of trainmen killed in a year to the total number of
trainmen employed, we see how unreliable such figures
are. As a matter of fact, trespassers come from all
walks of life, and the statement that was recently made
by Orlando F. Lewis, that from one half to three
quarters of trespassers are vagrants, is without founda-
tion. Mrs. Alice Willard Solenberger, in a book recently
published by the Russell Sage Foundation, entitled
“One Thousand Homeless Men,” criticises the customs
of railway officials in designating as “tramps,” that
very large body of men that “‘beat’’ their way about
* Reproduced from the Railway Age Gazette.
the country, and she refers to thousands of bona fide
workmen, who, at certain seasons of the year are needed
in a particular section of the country in large numbers.
She states that these seasonal and shifting workmen
are not tramps and should not be classed as such; and
neither should other men, who with a legitimate purpose
are on their way to a known destination, por should
those others who are only accidentally or quite tempo-
rarily upon the railways be so classed. She further
states that to class these men as “tramps” is not only
unfair to the men, but confuses the discussion regarding
either homeless men or tramps. From her investigation
she decided that 220 out of 1,000, or less than 2% per cent,
were tramps.
Being impressed with the lack of information on the
subject, and also by the assertions made with regard to
tramps on railways, I deemed it profitable to secure some
authoritative data, and to this end have examined reports
of accidents resulting in the deaths of 1,000 trespassers.
The results are interesting as well as enlightening.
It is many years since the word “tramp” eseaped from
the vocabulary of most railway officials, and was super-
seded by that very sentient substitute, “hobo.” A
tramp means one who walks from place to place, either
idly or in search of work; specifically, ‘‘an idle wan-
derer.”” ‘“‘Hobo”’ is defined as an idle, shiftless, wander-
ing workman, ranking scarcely above the tramp.
Among most railway men the hobo is a typical tramp,
especially to those who come in contact with the tres-
passer problem through the investigation of accidents
resulting in injury or death of persons generally. How-
ever, neither the word “tramp” nor “hobo” is used, ex-
cept in a very restricted sense, when applied to some per-
son who is in fact a hobo or tramp. These words, how-
4
e
|
4
ever, are not used to designate that large class of persons
who walk upon the tracks or “beat” their way upon rail-
way trains, but such persons have for years been classed
as trespassers.
The Interstate Commerce Commission reported that
during the fiseal year ending June 30th, 1911, 10,396 per-
sons were killed upon railways, and this number includes
those who were instantly killed or died within twenty-
four hours from the time of accident. Of these, 5,284 are
designated as “‘trespassers.”’ It is a significant fact that,
of the number of trespassers killed, practically 80 per
cent or 4,125 are shown as having been “‘struck by engine
or car,”’ in other words were walking or standing upon
the tracks; 520 were killed in “getting on or off cars and
engines,”’ 1,043 “‘while on trains,”’ and 116 from “‘other
causes.”’
There are many trespassers on the tracks of railways
who are regularly employed and who make it a practice
to use the right-of-way between streets or highways in
going to or from their work. The tracks are also used to
a considerable extent by pedestrians when publie high-
ways are wet and muddy, or difficult to walk upon.
We found that of 1,000 persons killed while trespassing,
489 resided near the place of accident; 321 resided at a
nlace distant from where the accident occurred; and the
residence of the balance, 190, was not ascertained.
The conjugal state of the decedents has some bearing
upon this question; and it is interesting to note that cf
these trespassers, 273 left widows or children, 33 were
widowers, 376 single, and the family connection of 318
unknown. Further, 369 were living with their families
or parents, 301 were not living with their families or par-
ents, and 330 could not be classified in this respect.
When we consider that many young men employed in
our larger cities have left home and are boarding, and
that among the trespassers there is quite a number of
foreigners who come to this country without their fami-
lies, it is not strange that so large a percentage should
be found not living with their families or parents. An-
other thing that indicates clearly that the large majority
of trespassers are not tramps in any sense of the word, is
that 598 of the thousand referred to were self-supporting
(388 were known to be regularly employed), and 105 were
not self-supporting. This information was not obtain-
able as to the balance.
The age by groups are of interest: 68 were 15 years
and under; 340 were 16 to 30 years old; 451 were 31 to 60
years old; 69 were over 60 years old; 72 were of unknown
ages, all these being adults.
With reference to nationalties we found that 468 were
Americans, including 3 Indians and 18 negroes. In 174
cases the nationality was not reported, but in the rest we
find that no less than twenty-four foreign countries con-
tributed their quota to this regiment of trespassers who
trespass no longer.
The occupations of those killed and the number em-
ployed in each warrants detailed mention. These were as
follows:
349 Unknown. 3 Nurseymen
19 None. 81 Shopmen and mechan-
70 Sehool children and ies.
students. 2 Barbers.
268 Laborers. 1 Contractor.
44 Farmhands. 3 Bakers.
1 Minister. 2 Messengers.
1 Actor. 5 Soldiers.
1 Inmate asylum. 8 Sailors.
10 Engineers. 31 Railway trainmen and
1 Chemist. other employees.
4 Clerks 3 Musicians.
6 Hotelmen and bartend- Teacher.
ers Fishermen
Patrolman..
1
2
18 Merchants, salesmen
2 Shoemakers.
4
4
and agents
2 Coachmen and chaf-
feurs
Horsedealers.
Lumbermen.
3 Linemen Watchmen.
3 Cigarmakers Miners.
Then, there were in addition six small children and
thirty women.
It is thus readily seen that not only from more or less
actual knowledge, but by a definite process of elimination
we learn that many of these unfortunates were neither
tramps nor hoboes, and, in fact, we are justified in saying
positively that 764 were not hoboes and 50 were, and that
the status of the rest was not determinable.
Deaths are oceasionally brought about by intention on
the part of the decedents, and the information at hand
shows that 15 of the cases were reported as suicides. In-
toxication contributed to a large extent to the number of
deaths, there being 93 cases reported due to this cause;
at least the men killed were intoxicated at the time. In
708 cases the trespasses were not intoxicated, and in the
rest the condition in this respect was not known.
Mrs. Solenberger says: ‘It is the mere accessibility of
the railways more than anything else, I believe, that is
manufacturing tramps to-day. So long as it is possible
for practically any man or boy to beat his way about the
country on the railways, we shall continue to have tramps
in America. When we succeed in absolutely closing these
highways to any but persons having a legitimate right to
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT No, 1897
be upon the them, we shall check at its source the largest
single contributory cause of vagrancy, and the problem of
the tramp, as such, will practically be solved. Asan unem-
ployed, untrained, sick or irresponsible homeless man he
will still need attention, but this can be given him with
inecomparably less difficulty when once he is deprived of
the facilities he now has for wandering from one place to
another.”
Considerable has been said of late with reference to
laws against trespassing. Very few of the States have
laws specifically directed against trespassing on railway
tracks, and usually laws with reference to trespassing on
trains are mild in form and not very often enforced. A
great deal of difficulty has been experienced from time to
time in getting magistrates to prosecute offenders in this
respect.
Mrs. Solenberger suggests: ‘‘If the migration of tramps
eould be controlled, as already suggested, under some
sort of federal interstate commerce law, the problems
might perhaps be solved, but it is most likely that these
vagrants can be dealt with by the national government
until long after individual States have discovered how
best to deal with them locally. Students of the problem
now generally believe that little progress can be made by
any State until the responsibility for the treatment of the
tramp is assumed by the State as a whole; until the laws
which affect him are State laws; until the cost of his
arrest and punishment or treatment is met by thé State,
and not by counties or cities within the State.”
It has been suggested from another source that Con-
gress pass a law prohibiting trespassing on interstate rail-
ways; and this suggestion is an excellent one and should
receive serious consideration.
However, it is evident from the information shown
above that, after all, the problem is not so much one of
dealing with tramps or hoboes, but with trespassers, who
in many instances are regularly employed, well-to-do and
respected citizens of our towns and cities, and that so far
as the prevention of accidents to trespassers is concerned,
the problem is largely a local one and wholly within the
hands of the local authorities.
Bleaching Powder as a Substitute for Soap.—Dr. G.
F. Sacher, in an article in Soziale Medizin u. Hygiene,
recommends the use of bleaching powder as a cleansing
agent for the hands of the working man as a preventive
against metal poisoning. Workmen handling metals,
such as lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, bismuth, zine,
chromium or manganese, either in metallic form or
in the form of compounds, are constantly exposed to
the danger of poisoning, through imperfectly cleaned
hands. Small particles may thus be transmitted to the
mouth in eating or smoking. To completely remove
metallic impurities from the hands is not always an
easy matter; soap alone is in most cases well nigh use-
less as it forms insoluble compounds with most of the
metals. Bleaching powder, however, is an ideal ma-
terial for the purpose stated. It has no injurious
effects on the hand or the blood, and may, therefore,
be used even on chapped hands. It forms a lather like
soap, and acts chemically as well as mechanically, thus
removing any metallic impurities or compounds in the
shortest time possible. It further has the advantage
over soap of having strong disinfecting properties.
Fire-proof Paints.—On this subject the Farbenzeitung
has some important information. To render readily
combustible material (wood, cardboard, paper, ete.)
difficult of ignition we have recourse either to impreg-
nation or to a protective coating. Before wood can be
impregnated it must be exhausted of air; the fluid
is then forced into it.under a pressure of eight atmos-
pheres. For this purpose, water glass, salts of am-
monium and tungsten, find extensive, alum, boracic
acid, chloride of zine and sodium phosphate a more
limited use. Girard recommends, as the best impreg-
nating fluid, a solution of 100 parts phosphate of am-
monium and 10 parts boracic acid in 1,000 parts of
water. Coating can also furnish fair protection. As
coatings the following mixtures are used: Dissolve in
60 parts of water, 15 parts of borax, and 15 parts of
Epsom salts and add color as desired; or use a solu-
tion of 14 parts sulphate of ammonium, 10 parts borax,
and 25 parts glue in SO parts of water. Very suitable
is likewise a mixture of 100 parts of gypsum with 50
parts sulphate of ammonium and 150 parts of water.
By the addition of dissolved walnut stain, colored coat-
ings may be obtained. If the coatings are to have cov-
ering properties, a mixture of 15 parts of asbestos, 10
parts of clay, 5 parts of borax, 5 parts of water glass,
and 15 parts of water is recommended. The asbestos
and the clay, which must both be ground very fine, are
first mixed and then thoroughly stirred with the solu-
tion of borax and water glass, the whole being applied
warm. Other fire-proof coatings are obtained by mix-
ing 100 parts heavy spar, 5 parts zine white, 100 parts
water-glass solution (30 deg. Bé.) and 80 parts water
in the hopper mill, or by mixing 70 parts of zine white,
30 parts of hydrate of lime, 10 parts water glass, 50
parts white lead, 10 parts zine vitriol, and as much
water as desired, also in the hopper mill.
May 11, 1912
Science Notes
The Pigment of Egg Yoke.—The German chemists,
Willstraeder and Esch, have isolated a crystalline prod-
uct, which represents the pigment of egg yoke. It is
interesting to note that this turns out to be closely
related to so-called xanthophyll, the pigment of green
leaves. Something of the patience of the workers may
be gathered from the fact that they had to treat no
less than 6,000 hens’ eggs in order to obtain 4 grammes
of the pure pigment.—La Nature.
Austrian Radium Monopoly.—<According to the
Neues Wiener Tagebdlatt, the Austrian State is about
to purchase Count Sylva Tarouca’s pitch blende mines
in the neighborhood of Joachimsthal for 2,250,000
kronen ($457,000). This purchase would give the
State a practical monopoly of the radium production in
Austria, if not in the world, inasmuch as the radium
yielding pitch blende deposits in other countries are
insignificant in comparison with those of the
Joachimsthal district, where it is hoped in future to
produce as much as five grammes of radium per year,
“Byes” of Snails.—We are all familiar with the
peculiar stalked structures which the common snail
protrudes from its head as it travels along, seemingly
exploring the territory around by what we are accuy-
tomed to describe as “eyes,” situated at the end of the
stalk. According to a note published in La Nature
this is a misapprehension. It appears that if the end:
bearing the so-called “eyes” are cut off these stalks,
the snail after a little while proceeds on its way in
exactly the usual way, thrusting out its tentacles and
behaving much as before. It is, therefore, doubtful
whether this eye has any visual function at all. It
seems rather that the tentacles, by touch or in some
other way, inform the snail of the presence and char-
acter of neighboring objects.
Resistance to the Tropical Sun.—Ilans Aron, writing
in the Philippine Journal of Science, tells us that ani-
mals whose capacity for thermal regulation is limited,
such as rabbits and monkeys, rapidly succumb to ex-
posure to the tropical sun. Autopsy in such cases shows
hemorrhagic lesions of the meninges, sometimes of the
heart. Under the same circumstances, the skin of a
man rises some three or four deg. Cent. above the nor-
mal. Theoretically, the black skin of negro races should
absorb more heat than that of the white people. How-
ever, colored races are better able than the white to
regulate their temperature under the influence of the
tropical sun, perhaps because perspiration is more
abundant. The ape, although a native of the tropics,
is less capable of resisting the sun than other animals
and even the white man. This is no doubt attributable
to the fact that its natural habitat is in the forests;
for certain monkeys two hours of exposure to the
tropical sun is fatal—La Nature.
Dry Air for the Treatment of Wounds.—It is a ma.
ter of common knowledge among the initiated that in
the tropics even severe wounds heal with remarkable
rapidity. The cause for this phenomenon is not com-
pletely explained. It cannot be ascribed merely to the
heat, for in our latitudes we do not experience any ad-
vantage of this kind during the summer. The active
factor must be the great dryness of the air, and indeed
experience teaches us that very few bacteria are capable
of living in dry air. The idea very naturally suggests
itself to apply specially dried air for the treatment
of wounds, catarrhs, ete. An apparatus for this pur-
pose has recently been constructed by Dr. R. Kutner,
and is described in Prometheus. The air is passed
through a number of flasks, of which the first contains
parafline oil, serving merely for washing the air. The
second and third flasks contain pumice soaked in strong
sulphurie acid, and lastly, two flasks are provided with
a charge of lime and caustic soda. If desired, suitable
medicinal vapors may be added to the air, which may
also be heated, a thermometer indicating its tempera-
ture. A blast of air may thus be directed to any por-
tion desired or may be inhaled from a suitable mouth-
piece. Reports on the results obtained are favorable.
and hitherto no ill effects have been observed as the
resul of its use.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Energetics and Cultural History.—By Henry Ibers........- 290
The Chemistry of Sewage Disposal—By George G. Nasmith 291
Manganese in Steel Production. ............0000eeeeeeeee 291
Insects Destructive to Books.—By William R. Reinick.—10 208
Human Evidence of Evolution. —By A. M. Gossage. M.D... 204
and Lamps. S. E. Neu- 295
The Kinematograph as an Aid to Mathematical Instruction 295
How Founded a Scientific —By Day .
Allen Willey.—10 illustrations.
Stereoscopic Vision.—By Frederic Campbell, Se. D.—3 illus- .
tration: 298
The Mode of Propagation of ‘Infantile Paralysis........--- 299
A power Oil Engine for Tugboat Service.—7 illustra- 300
The Cause of Souring of Milk in Thunderstorms..........- 301
The Present Status of the waaes Engine in Europe.—I.—By
Dr. Rudolph Diesel..........
The Ether.—By P. G.
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